Election lawyer Scott Salmon wants presidential contender Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. booted off the New Jersey ballot under the state’s Sore Loser Law, which prohibits candidates from mounting an independent run after previously seeking votes for a major party nomination.
“Courts in New Jersey have repeatedly upheld the Sore Loser Law in recent years to preclude individuals from running as independents even when they did not appear on the primary ballot itself,” Salmon, a Democrat, said in a lawsuit filed in Superior Court today.
Salmon argues that it is irrefutable that Kennedy actively sought the 2024 Democratic nomination for president and only flipped to an independent run after it became clear he could not dislodge Joe Biden from renomination. Kennedy ended his challenge to Biden in October 2023.
According to Salmon, Kennedy raised roughly $385,000 from 750 New Jersey donors and spent $1.6 million in New Jersey while seeking the Democratic nomination.
Salmon said that Kennedy received “hundreds, if not thousands, of write-in votes in the primary election for the Democratic Party.”
“Because most counties do not report write-in results for offices of this type, it is unknown exactly how many votes he received,” Salmon said. But he noted that Kennedy received votes in Cumberland, Somerset, and Camden counties.
Salmon maintains that if Kennedy is allowed to remain on the ballot, it would not only violate state law but also effectively dilute his own vote. He wants a judge to enjoin Kennedy from being on the ballot in New Jersey.
Election laws are frequently fungible in New Jersey, and sometimes, the ruling depends on the judge.
Salmon became an expert on that issue after a South Jersey judge tossed Penns Grove Mayor LaDaena Thomas, an independent, from the general election ballot last year. An individual not affiliated with Thomas’ campaign used Facebook to urge voters to write in Thomas in the Democratic primary; while the first-term mayor didn’t seek votes, she alluded to it on Facebook, and that was enough for Judge Benjamin Morgan to kick her off the ballot. Salmon worked on that case.
In 2022, a judge in Monmouth County found that an unsuccessful write-in candidate in a Colts Neck GOP primary could not file as an independent.
After an East Rutherford councilman who lost the GOP primary was offered an open slot on the Democratic ticket in 2018, Judge Estela De La Cruz found that the Loser Law applied and wouldn’t permit Jeffrey Lahullier to run as a Democrat. (The following year, Lahullier ran for mayor as a Democrat and won.)
But an inconsistent judiciary went the other way in 2003. Four-term Assemblywoman Arline Friscia (D-Woodbridge) was dropped from the Middlesex Democratic line in 2003, she ran in the primary and came within 735 votes of keeping her seat.
Then, Republicans recruited her to switch parties and seek re-election on their slate. Democrats went to court, arguing that Friscia was violating the Sore Loser Law. A judge ruled that Friscia was eligible to become a replacement candidate for the winner of the Republican primary; her Hail Mary bid to keep her seat failed in the Democratic-leaning 19th district, and she lost by about 3,200 votes.
Earlier this month, the Division of Elections rejected a nominating petition filed by Peter Vallorosi, who wanted to run as an independent for the U.S. Senate after previously running as a Republican. He filed for the GOP primary but withdrew after it became clear he didn’t have enough signatures on his nominating petition to sustain a challenge.
Kennedy filed petitions to get on the November general election ballot in May, but New Jersey will not certify his candidacy after the July 29 filing deadline.
In 2020, Salmon filed a challenge that forced Kanye West off the ballot as an independent candidate for the presidency.