SOUTH JERSEY JAWN BUTTON

On the same day America elected Ronald Reagan its 40th president, five of six counties in southern New Jersey voted to secede from the Garden State. The non-binding referendum on Election Day 1980 was the culmination of a quirky, mostly sincere but sometimes tongue-in-cheek political movement that began in the mid-1970s to create South Jersey, the 51st state, below Interstate 195 and the Manasquan River. The plebiscite appeared on the Nov. 4 ballot in Atlantic, Burlington, Cape May, Cumberland, Ocean and Salem counties. Camden and Gloucester counties opted not to put the question to their voters. Leaving New Jersey was favored in every county where it was on the ballot, with the notable exception of Ocean, winning a total of 51 percent of the combined vote. Collectively, in the six counties, secession was approved 180,663 votes to 174,151 votes; while in Ocean County, 59 percent of voters rejected secession — with 67,912 against to 46,863 in favor of South Jersey statehood.