The New Jersey Democratic State Committee is urging Secretary of State Tahesha Way to reverse a decision by an administrative law judge and toss Brittany Claybrooks, a former staffer on Andy Kim’s U.S. Senate campaign, from the ballot in a special Democratic primary for Congress in the 10th district.
“This challenge was focused on concerns of self-evident fraud in the form of forgery which is obvious to any person,” said Raj Parikh, the counsel to the state party, in a letter sent later last night to Way.
Parikh criticized the decision of the judge, Susana Guerrero, to ignore an admission by a petition circulator to obtain forged signatures. He said upholding Guerrero’s decision “would continue to represent a significant shift in the Division of Election’s standard regarding its obligation to ensure that the nominating petition process is free of fraud and abuse and would render the rigid requirements of (the statute) irrelevant.”
“What is the point of having a statutory scheme for ballot access if the law does not even need to be loosely followed?” Parikh asked.
He argues that while some petition defects can be amended within the statutory period – three days – Claybrooks, a former East Orange city councilwoman, was unaware of the flaws until after a court challenge was underway. Parikh told Way that accepting the petitions would “provide an essentially endless amount of time for candidates to resolve non-signature defects in their petitions.”
“A contrary legal determination, would essentially create a loophole for candidates and circulators to engage in improper conduct and then not appear when challenged so the presumption of validity provides access to the ballot,” Parikh argued. “Such a finding would render the challenge process related to circulator impropriety as useless or so time-consuming that the elections process would be unnecessarily delayed — as it was here to due (Claybrooks’ ) failures.”
Way, who is also New Jersey’s lieutenant governor, has until noon to make a final decision on Claybrooks’ status as a candidate.
On Wednesday evening, Way affirmed a decision by Administrative Law Judge Kim Belin to keep another candidate, Newark City Council President LaMonica McIver, on the ballot in the July 16 Democratic primary.
Gov. Phil Murphy ordered a special election to fill the unexpired term of Rep. Donald Payne, Jr. (D-Newark), who died on April 24 at age 65.
Payne remains on the ballot in the June 4 Democratic primary and is unopposed. Democratic county committee members from New Jersey’s 10th district must meet between the certification of the primary results and late August. The party is not obligated to nominate the winner of the July special primary for a full two-year term.