On March 20th Taxpayers United in Franklin (TUF) will file a complaint with New Jersey's Election Law Enforcement Commission regarding the Franklin Board of Education's (BOE) practice of using their phone autodialers for a "get out the vote" effort. According to the Director of TUF Phil Kramer, "We have no problem with the BOE using the phone system to encourage people to vote, our problem is that they only call the parents of students thus they are using public resources to reach people who are more likely to vote in favor of the budget. If they are going to make calls, they should call all voters not just the ones that will vote in their favor."

"Traditionally senior communities tend to vote against the budget yet since they have no children in school they would be missed by the BOE calls", said TUF founder Chip Hoever.

The text of the complaint reads:

Every year the Franklin Township Board of Education (BOE) in Somerset uses their telephone autodialer to call voters in an effort to “get out the vote”. We have no problem with that; our problem is the list they use to make the calls. It is the list of phone numbers for the students that are enrolled in school. Clearly the parents of children enrolled in school are more likely to vote in favor of a school budget than people living in our adult communities that are not on the call list. We believe that this is a use of public resources, paid for with tax dollars, for a directed calling to those more likely to vote in favor of the budget. It would be similar to an elected official using public resources to send out a “get out the vote” mailing to only those in her own party. We have offered to provide the BOE with the full voter registration list so that they can use it to direct their calls. To date they have declined and we fear they intend follow their old practices. They are speaking to their lawyer to see if they can continue to do so. The matter is made worse because this year a non-incumbent candidate for the BOE lives in an adult community. Having her area excluded from being called is a distinct advantage to the incumbents. In the interest of full disclosure the incumbent candidates agree that it would be unfair the use the autodialer as it has been used in previous elections. The BOE election is April 17th. They typically do the calling in the days immediately prior to the election. Thus we request that you expedite investigation of these actions.

When at a recent BOE meetings Mr. Kramer asked the BOE president Eva Nagy if she will continue the practice she replied, "We are checking with our lawyer." Kramer then asked both incumbent candidates their opinion but Nagy prevented them from answering. Incumbent candidate Michael Kanarek broke protocol and objected to Nagy's restriction of the conversation.

Challenging candidate Shirley Pietrucha (who does not live in an adult community) spoke in agreement with Kramer. After the meeting both incumbent candidates opposed the practice as being unfair.

"It's not about what's legal it's about what's right", said Kramer.

In related news TUF has begun to publish it's "Candidate forum" that allows BOE candidates to use the TUF website (betuf.org) to get the word out about themselves. "The more information the voters have the better. We will likely endorse candidates a few days before the election and give our opinion on the budget", said Kramer.