Joanne Rajoppi

Essex County Democratic Chairman Philip Thigpen is getting ready to run for office: he says he expected to become his party's candidate for Register of Deeds and Mortgages.  The organization supported Newark Central Ward Democratic Chairman Dwight Brown for Register in the June primary after incumbent Carole Graves declined to seek re-election.  But Brown died unexpectedly over the summer, leaving Democrats without a candidate to face Republican Terriann Moore Abrams, a former South Orange Village Trustee.

The post has a $91,650 annual salary and is a five-year term.

Essex and Hudson are the last counties to have an elected Register of Deeds and Mortgages.  In the other nineteen counties, the County Clerk performs their duties.  Camden eliminated the position after Republican Susan Rose won the post in 1990.  Union got rid of the post in 1995 when the incumbent, Joanne Rajoppi, ran for County Clerk. 

Four years after Democrat Gerard DeStefano ousted longtime GOP Passaic County Register Frank Sylvester in 1996, the Republican-controlled Legislature eliminated his job.  They did it with the ultimate political cover: Passaic voters had passed a non-binding referendum urging the post be absorbed into the Office of the County Clerk (then held by Republican Ronnie Nochimson).

The Hudson County Register is Willie Flood, who is also a Jersey City Councilwoman.

Thigpen, a former Freeholder and fixture in local politics since the 1960's, would be under no obligation to give up his chairmanship.  Eight other County Chairs are elected officials.

But some Democrats say Thigpen might give up the party post.  Phil Alagia, the Chief of Staff to Essex County Executive Joseph DiVincenzo and the political director of Gov. Jon Corzine's re-election campaign, is a potential candidate for Essex County Democratic Chairman.

Alagia says he supports Thigpen.

"There is no one in Essex County who can do a better job of moving the Essex County Democratic Party forward then Chairman Thigpen," Alagia told PolitickerNJ.com.  It is my understanding that he will stay as chairman and he has my support 100 percent. 

Citing concerns over the vulnerability of New Jersey’s electronic voting machines raised in a Princeton University professor’s report, the top Union County election official is encouraging residents to vote by mail.

Union County Clerk Joanne Rajoppi today reminded voters that the Clerks Office will be open Saturday to hand out last minute absentee ballots before the November 4th, saying that she didn’t feel confident that all votes would be counted accurately by the current stock of machines. She plans to redeploy her agency’s staff to deal with the expected increased volume of paper ballots.

Rajoppi had asked the state to investigate tallying errors she found in the voting machines, manufactured by Sequoia, during the February presidential primary. No investigation took place, however.