The New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission has opened an investigation into numerous county political organizations and notified some county chairs that it intends to subpoena bank records, the New Jersey Globe has confirmed.
Leaders of both parties received letters over the last two weeks notifying them of a sweeping audit of all 42 county organizations and requiring extensive documentation of financial activities from December 1, 2024 through February 28, 2026. The total number of subpoenas remains unclear.
Several letters reviewed by the New Jersey Globe offer no glimpse of what triggered the audit or the investigation.
ELEC has demanded a wide range of documents: initial bank statements for campaign depositories; contribution and receipts ledgers; contributor records and electronic payment information involving services such as PayPal, Transaxt, and GoFundMe; allocation letters tied to contributions from partnerships, LLCs, or LLPs; expenditure and disbursement ledgers; invoices, receipts, contracts, and itemized documentation for expenses categorized as “operations,” “petty cash,” “expenses,” or “reimbursement”; written notices involving coordinated expenditures on behalf of another candidate or committee; and detailed records for credit card and debit card transactions, including vendors, purposes, and itemized purchases.
County chairs and treasurers were told to provide all information within a relatively short timeframe — in some cases, just over two weeks — despite scheduling conflicts with the upcoming primary election.
The letters were signed by different investigators assigned to probe county organizations.
New Jersey’s Campaign Contributions and Expenditures Reporting Act gives ELEC authority to issue subpoenas and compel the production of records.