Administrative Law Judge Susana Guerrero has issued a new opinion keeping former East Orange Councilwoman Brittany Claybrooks on the ballot in the special election for New Jersey’s 10th congressional district, obeying Secretary of State Tahesha Way’s order yesterday that she update her earlier opinion.
Claybrooks’ petitions had been challenged by Leslye Moya, a top official in the New Jersey Democratic State Committee, who challenged the validity of many of Claybrooks’ 352 signatures and also alleged that there may have been widespread fraud that would have invalidated her entire set of petitions.
During initial proceedings last week, 65 signatures were rejected as invalid, but that still kept Claybrooks well above the 200 she needed for ballot access. Guerrero also found that Moya’s side had “not presented sufficient evidence” to indicate any forgery or fraud, and thus chose to keep Claybrooks on the ballot.
But Way remanded the case back to Guerrero yesterday, saying that Guerrero’s opinion needed to make “clear factual findings” with regards to whether the signatures collected by two circulators should be rejected wholesale.
Guerrero did so in her new opinion today, spelling out her precise factual findings related to the two petition circulators at issue. There was no additional hearing on the matter.
“Given my findings of fact, and specifically that there is insufficient evidence in the record to prove, by a preponderance of the evidence, that any circulator swapped signature pages; failed to personally circulate the Petition for which he or she signed a circulator affidavit; failed to witness each signer sign his own name to the Petition; or failed to truthfully sign the circulator affidavits; I CONCLUDE that a preponderance of the evidence supports that the petition booklets circulated by Estefany Tejada, Sandy Castor, and the other circulators, complied with [state law],” Guerrero wrote today.
The attorneys in the case were given two hours to file exceptions – a somewhat complicated deadline, given that a separate petition challenge involving many of the same attorneys is going on simultaneously.
The ultimate decision about whether Claybrooks will remain on the ballot still lies with Way, who shifted the date for certifying the final list of candidates from yesterday to Thursday, May 23.
As for whether one of Claybrooks’ primary opponents, Newark City Council President LaMonica McIver, will be able to make the ballot, that’s still an open question. McIver’s petitions were challenged for all sharing one circulator, which Claybrooks challenged as being logistically unlikely.
McIver had originally been kept on the ballot by Administrative Law Judge Kim Belin, but as with the Claybrooks case, Way remanded the case back to her yesterday. Belin is currently conducting a new hearing on the matter.