If you're feeling angry, apathetic or lazy as Election Day approaches, just vote by mail

Donald J. Trump has claimed to be a self-made billionaire, but that's total fiction, according to a New York Times investigation, and cartoonist Joe Heller of the Green Bay Press Gazette in Wisconsin illustrates the fraud. 

IN HACKENSACK, YOU CAN REJECT

 $165M SCHOOL PLAN FROM HOME

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

HACKENSACK, N.J. -- If you are one of the Democrats angered by the bitter partisan battle that ended with Brett Kavanaugh getting a lifetime seat on the U.S. Supreme Court, the solution is as close as your mailbox.

All you have to do to vote on Nov. 6 -- in a bid to move Congress to the left -- is apply for a mail-in ballot, fill it out in the comfort of your home and send it in.

The Bergen County clerk sent out forms to register to vote, as well as applications for a mail-in ballot, so you no longer have an excuse to remain on the sidelines, as millions of apathetic or lazy Democrats did in the 2016 presidential election.

If Democrats take control of Congress, there is a real possibility we could see the impeachments of both President Trump and Associate Justice Kavanaugh in 2019.

With a mail-in ballot, you can really procrastinate: 

"Mail-in ballots that bear a postmark date of November 6, 2018, which are received by the County Board of Elections by 8:00 p.m. on November 8, 2018, shall be considered timely submitted," according to an insert in my mail-in ballot.

By the way, you'll need two stamps to mail back the ballot, but you also can hand carry it to the Bergen County Administration Building in Hackensack. 

$165M referendum

Meanwhile, Hackensack's notoriously apathetic residents also can use a mail-in ballot to reject a Board of Education referendum to spend a total of $165.1 million on a new junior high school and existing schools.

If approved, local property taxes surely will go up; about 45% of your taxes already go to support the schools.

School board President Lara L. Rodriguez has mentioned Jan. 22, 2019, as a possible date for Hackensack residents to vote on the proposal -- clearly a strategy to use winter weather keep the vote down.

Well, don't let the school board get away with it: Vote against the plan by mail-in ballot.

Read: Enrollment hike of 120 students

 doesn't justify $165M plan

Ballot deadlines

The deadline to apply for a mail-in ballot by mail is "not less than 7 days prior to an election."

In person, you can apply "up to 3 p.m. on the day before the election."

The voter-registration deadline is 21 days before the Nov. 6 election; this year that's Oct. 16.

And if you received a mail-in ballot in the 2016 presidential election, county election officials were obligated to send you a mail-in ballot for the 2018 General Election on Nov. 6.

And you'll get a mail-in ballot for all future elections, unless your notify the officials in writing you do not want to receive them.

The mail-in ballot, instructions and inserts for the mid-term elections for Congress -- less than a month away -- are in three languages, English, Spanish and Korean. Plus, the Nov. 6 ballot has statewide and Hackensack public questions.

Democrats must vote a straight party line, if they hope to gain control of Congress.

If approved, the first public question would authorize the state to issue $500 million in bonds to provide grants to schools, school districts and county colleges for technical education, school security and water infrastructure improvements. The second public question would set up a Municipal Open Space, Recreation and Historic Preservation Trust Fund in Hackensack.