Tinton Falls Community Day 2025

Tinton Falls 75th Jubilee Recap and Election Results

TF 75th Jubilee 2025

Recap and Election Results

Tinton Falls Neighbors,

Yesterday, Saturday, Sep 6, was the final day of the big Tinton Falls 75th Anniversary Jubilee celebration, and your friends in the Tinton Falls Democratic Club were there. Although we put together a great booth with a great staff, and were prepared for a great day, there was one thing we couldn't control... the weather.

After only about 90 minutes, the skies opened up and put a "damper" on our afternoon. All of the booths made it through the first extended downpour, but when we realized that an even bigger storm was on the way, they called it, and the event began to shut down. We packed it up and headed out, but not before getting totally soaked. I guess you can't win them all.

We did manage to collect a whopping FOURTEEN VOTES in our kids mail-in voting election and TWELVE VOTES in our Ranked Choice Voting demo, and those results are below. One big surprise was the unexpected awesomeness of the Ranked Choice results. It was so cool!

Our booth and the awesome staff that braved the storm!

The Pouring Rain that cut the event short

And now for the critical moment you've all been waiting for, the...

Kids Mail-in Election Results
We got off to a good start, but the rain cut our voting short, and we only had FOURTEEN people participate this year, but that's still enough for an election.

Here are the results:

Question 1: What is your favorite color?

WINNER: Pink - 7 votes
Green - 3 votes
Red - 1 vote
Blue - 1 vote
Orange - 0 votes
Black - 0 votes

Question 2: What is your favorite snack?

WINNER: Ice Cream - 8 votes
Popcorn - 1 vote
Potato Chips - 1 vote
Goldfish - 1 vote
Chocolate - 1 vote
Pretzels - 0 votes

Question 3: What is your favorite fast food?

WINNER: Chick-Fil-A - 7 votes
McDonalds - 4 votes
No fast food - 1 vote
Wendys - 0 votes
Burger King - 0 votes
Popeyes -0 votes

Question 4: What is your favorite pizza?

WINNER: Plain - 10 votes (a mandate)
Sausage - 1 vote
Mushroom - 1 vote
Pepperoni - 0 votes
Veggie - 0 votes
Extra cheese - 0 votes

Question 5: What is your favorite professional sport?

WINNER: Soccer - 4 votes
Baseball - 2 votes
Football - 2 votes
Tennis - 1 vote
Basketball - 1 vote
Don't like pro sports - 1 vote

And finally, tour first ever

Ranked Choice Voting Demo Election

With TOTALLY SURPRISING RESULTS
With only twelve people participating in our demo election before the rain came, I expected this to be a pretty lame example, but it was actually a completely EXCELLENT and INTERESTING demo of Ranked Choice Voting. The low number of votes caused several unusual cases that would not likely ever come up with a large number.

Remember that with RCV, you have multiple passes until one of the options gets more than 50% of the vote. The results below list all of the passes so you can see how it works.

Here are the results and analysis:

Question 1:

Rank the Three New Jersey Voting Methods

First Pass Results - No Ranked Choice Adjustment:

7 Votes - 63.64% - In person on election day <- WINNER!!

2 Votes - 18.18% - In person early voting

1 vote - 9.09% - Mail-in voting

As you can see, in the first pass, "In person election day voting" got more than 50% of the vote and was declared the winner. No ranked choice adjustments were needed.

Question 2:

Rank Local Sports Teams

First Pass Results - No Ranked Choice Adjustment:

3 Votes - 33.33% - Giants

3 Votes - 33.33% - Eagles

2 Votes - 22.22% - Jets

1 Vote - 11.11% - Devils

0 Votes - 0% - Flyers

In this race, none of the options got 50% of the vote, so we now start Ranked Choice processing.

The Flyers got the least votes, so they get eliminated, and anyone who picked them as their first choice has their next choice used.

Second Pass Results - Flyers Eliminated:

3 Votes - 33.33% - Giants

3 Votes - 33.33% - Eagles

2 Votes - 22.22% - Jets

1 Vote - 11.11% - Devils

Surprise #`1 - The Flyers had no first place rankings, so the percentages didn't change at all by eliminating them. This would be very rare in an election with thousands of votes.

The Devils now have the lowest number of votes and are eliminated, and those votes are redistributed.

Third Pass Results - Devils Eliminated:

3 Votes - 33.33% - Giants

3 Votes - 33.33% - Eagles

3 Votes - 33.33% - Jets

SURPRISE #2! A Three way tie! What the...? Again, in a race with thousands of votes, this would be highly unlikely but it's still something that needs to be considered. So I googled what to do and found several options. In this case, we looked back at the earlier rounds to see which of the three teams remaining got the least first choice votes. Sadly (for me), that caused the Jets to be eliminated.

Fourth Pass Results - Jets Eliminated:

5 Votes - 55.56% - Giants <- WINNER!!

4 Votes - 44.44% - Eagles

And finally, we have a winner, as the Giants get above 50% and beat the Eagles!

Question 3:

Rank Local Restaurants:

First Pass Results - No Ranked Choice Adjustment:

3 Votes - 27.27% - MJs

2 Votes - 18.18% - Woodys

2 Votes - 18.18% - Gargiulos

1 Vote - 9.09% - Pour House

3 Votes - 27.27% -Applebees

This is a pretty normal case. Several options and none get 50%, so we eliminate the Pour House and redistribute the votes to the second choices.

Second Pass Results - Pour House eliminated:

3 Votes - 27.27% - MJs

3 Votes - 27.27% - Woodys

2 Votes - 18.18% - Gargiulos

3 Votes - 27.27% -Applebees

Still, nobody got more than 50%, so we eliminate the next lowest vote getter, Gargiulos.

Third Pass Results - Gargiulos eliminated:

4 Votes - 36.36% - MJs

4 Votes - 36.36% - Woodys

3 Votes - 27.27% -Applebees

Still not there so the process continues. We eliminate Applebees and distribute the votes.

Fourth Pass Results - Applebees eliminated:

6 Votes - 54.55% - MJs <-- WINNER !

5 Votes - 45.45% - Woodys

Finally, MJs gets over 50% and is declared the winner. This is a classic Ranked Choice election and an excellent example.

We hope this demo election and recap was interesting and educational and hopefully not confusing. I personally learned a few things even though I have been looking at this for a while. One other thing I noticed is that even with a small sample size, one person didn't fill in their ballot properly and marked multiple sports teams as their first choice, which disqualified their vote. That tells me that if we do adopt this, it really needs to be clear to people how it works.

Want To Look Closer?

If you're still reading this, well first, God bless you. But that means you might be interested in this process. If you want to look deeper and see the Excel spreadsheet where I tallied the ranked choice votes, you can do so.

Click HERE FOR THE SPREADSHEET.

Thanks for reading!