East Windsor Township voters appear to have returned Jeanne Bourjolly to the East Windsor Regional School District Board of Education for another term, based on preliminary results in the Nov. 3 general election.
Bourjolly had received 5,172 votes to keep her seat on the school board as of Nov. 7, which was the last update the Mercer County Clerk’s Office had provided as of press time on Nov. 11.
She is being challenged by Jagruti Patel, who earned 4,091 votes. Bourjolly and Patel are vying for a three-year term on the school board.
Bourjolly has lived in East Windsor since 2016. She was appointed to fill a vacancy on the school board in January, and is now seeking a full three-year term. She has one child who attends the Walter C. Black Elementary School. She works for the New Jersey Department of the Treasury.
Patel has lived in East Windsor since 2001. Patel, who works for the U.S. Department of the Treasury, has one child who attends the Grace Rogers Elementary School and another child who is a freshman at Hightstown High School.
No one had filed to run for a one-year term on the school board to represent East Windsor Township, or for a three-year term on the school board to represent Hightstown Borough.
However, 400 votes were cast for “personal choice” for the one-year term representing East Windsor, and 251 votes for the three-year term representing Hightstown. There are also 157 “personal choice” votes for the three-year term to represent East Windsor.
“Personal choice” are write-in names on the ballot.
Seven of the nine seats on the East Windsor Regional School District Board of Education are set aside for East Windsor residents, and two are available for Hightstown residents. Three seats become available every year.
The vote tallies are unofficial and have not been certified by Mercer County Clerk Paula Sollami-Covello. The deadline to count votes is Nov. 20. The final vote tally must be certified to the State of New Jersey by Nov. 23.
Sollami-Covello said the Mercer County Board of Elections, which falls under her office, is waiting for the last vote-by-mail ballots to arrive. There are also 1,132 provisional ballots cast by East Windsor voters that must be counted, she said.
