Judge says Kranjac will stay on ballot

Former Englewood Cliffs Mayor Mario Kranjac has survived a legal challenge to his nominating petitions and is expected to be on the ballot in the June 10 Republican primary for governor.

Administrative Law Judge Carl Buck III found that Bill Spadea’s campaign was unable to strike enough signatures to bring Kranjac below the 2,500 minimum he needed.

Buck had rejected 335 signatures from Kranjac’s total, while withholding judgment on about 76 others.

But the judge, in a decision released today, turned down a bid by Spadea to toss 433 signatures from unaffiliated voters.

“A signer who is a registered voter but who is unaffiliated with any party is not disqualified from signing a nominating petition because such a voter may declare party membership by signing the nominating petition,” Buck stated.

He also refused a bid to invalidate petitions from ten circulators who were unaffiliated at the time the petitions were signed, saying the issue was not brought forward until after the challenge deadline.  Buck’s call is different than a statement made by another judge with Burlington county ties, John Harrington.  Harrington had said that “election deadlines are fungible.”

Buck also disagreed that one circulator, Sharyn Alban, was ineligible because she’d already signed a petition for another candidate, Jack Ciattarelli.

Kranjac had filed with 2,949 signatures – 449 more than the minimum requirement under a new state law.  Spadea needed to get 450 of them rejected to block Kranjac from being on the ballot.   Even if all of the 76 signatures on hold were to be removed, Kranjac would have had enough to remain on the ballot.