Race for Bogota mayor heads for recount vote
BOGOTA — The vote for the borough’s next mayor is heading to a recount.
A Superior Court judge has ordered a recount of the mayor’s race in the Nov. 7 election, in which the candidates were separated by just seven votes.
The recount, scheduled for Friday morning, was requested by Councilwoman Mary Ellen Murphy, who lost the election, with 821 votes, to Daniele Fede, who received 828 votes.
If Murphy is successful, the borough’s municipal government will be all Democratic. Republican Christopher Kelemen has been mayor since 2014 and did not seek reelection.
Fede is a Republican who works as an attorney and served on the Borough Council from 2014 to 2022. She joined the council for one one-year term, filling Kelemen’s seat on the council when he became mayor, and then was elected to two full terms.
“I fully expected the judge to grant the recount, because judges don’t want to disenfranchise anyone,” Fede said. “I’m not concerned. I don’t think it’s going to change the results of the election. I’m looking forward to closure on the matter at this point.”
Murphy, a teacher in Ridgefield Park, was first elected to the council in 2016 for a one-year unexpired term. Murphy gave up her seat on the council in her bid for mayor.
The Nov. 7 election saw tight races in a handful of municipalities and was marred by issues with new voting machines and incorrect results posted on the Bergen County clerk’s website. County officials have called for investigations of what went wrong and steps to prevent similar problems during the next election.
“We will count the provisional ballots, the vote-by-mail ballots, the earlyvoting ballots, and we’ll also count the ballots from the machines on Election Day,” said Richard Miller, chairman of the Bergen County Board of Elections.
There will be two teams of four counters each who will go through the ballots and read off the names. Democratic and Republican commissioners will be there “so the right name is called” and to “compare the results at the end of the counting,” Miller said.
A recount of the mayor’s race in Oakland, in which the candidates were separated by 56 votes, was held last Friday.
That count changed the final numbers but did not change the outcome — Republican Councilman Eric Kulmala, who was the winner after Election Day with a 56-vote lead over Democratic Mayor Linda Schwager, saw his margin of victory shrink to 21 votes.
The county has two more recounts scheduled for next week to check the results of the Ridgefield and Palisades Park school board elections.
“Hopefully that’ll finish everything up,” Miller said.
“We’ll be done by January and then can look forward to next year’s election.”
Murphy did not respond to requests for comment.