Yesterday, April 16th, the Newark Board of Education held its annual school board elections. The slate backed by Mayor Ras Baraka called “Newark Schools Forward” won all four seats, three three-year terms and one one-year term. All are incumbents: Dawn Hayes, Vereliz Santana, Helena Vinhas, and Kanileah Anderson.

Out of out of 163,713 registered voters in Newark, just 4,626, or 2.8%, bothered to cast a ballot. Last year turnout was slightly higher at 3%. Chalkbeat reports,

“Nonprofit groups such as Project Ready, The Gem Project, and the Newark branch of the NAACP held candidate forums to increase voter turnout this year. Each group has stressed the importance of participating in the election by canvassing, sharing information on social media, and hosting voter events. Project Ready also hired a truck with an LED message board to drive around the city and encourage people to vote.”

In January the Newark City Council voted to lower the voting age to 16 in order to increase turnout but the implementation has been delayed until 2025 because of voter registration issues. North Ward Councilman Anibal Ramos Jr., who voted in favor of the change, had predicted “if the city does not engage young people in the process, the 3% turnout in the last school board election could drop even lower.”

This election proved him right.