Four Republican candidates running for federal office this year have filed a lawsuit in state court to force county clerks to use office block ballots for both parties in the June 4 primary.
U.S. District Court Judge Zahid Quraishi signed a preliminary injunction on March 29 requiring counties to use office block designs for the upcoming primary. The following day, the judge clarified his order to apply only to Democrats since Republicans never challenged the process.
The plaintiffs are U.S. Senate candidate Albert Harshaw and House candidates Shirley Maia-Cusick, Gregg Mele, and Hector Castillo.
“By refusing to require that the several county clerks use an office-block style ballot design for Republicans, the court left Republican candidates and Republican voters with what it believes to be an unconstitutional system while relieving Democrat candidates and Democrat voters of the same harm,” Robert Kovic, an attorney representing the candidates, said in a court filing.
Kovic claims his clients are “all being forced to participate in a political primary process which is presumably unconstitutional and different than their Democrat counterparts.”
He said county clerks “do not have the power to ignore their discretionary obligation to ensure fair, impartial, and transparent election processes that ensure the equal treatment of all parties and candidates to strengthen public confidence in the democratic system.”
This sets us a possible conflict between federal and state courts since the Third Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals agreed to expedite an appeal of Quraishi’s order and will hear oral arguments on Friday.
Quraishi found that a federal lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the line had “a likelihood of success on the merits … as well as a showing of irreparable harm, including the likelihood of constitutional violations.”
Maia-Cusick is running for the 3rd district congressional seat Rep. Andy Kim (D-Moorestown) is giving up to run for U.S. Senate. Kim was the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit that caused Quraishi to sign the preliminary injunction.
Burlington County Clerk Joanne Schwartz, a Democrat, chose to end the Republican organization line in her county anyway. Republicans are suing to get their line back.
While Maia-Cusick is running in an open primary in Burlington, where about two-thirds of the GOP voters live, Rajesh Mohan, another candidate, is on the line in Mercer and Monmouth counties.
Harshaw, a U.S. Army veteran who had run for President earlier this cycle, won just a handful of county committee votes when he participated in county conventions. Mele and Castillo, who are running in the 6th and 9th districts, respectively, are perennial candidates.
“Republican voters are forced to participate in what has been deemed to likely be an unconstitutional system,” Kovic said in his filing. “Unaffiliated voters who are planning to vote in the 2024 primary election are being forced to choose between a constitutional primary election and a presumably unconstitutional primary election.”
Kovic claims Harshaw, Maia-Cusick, Mele and Castillo are entitled to equal application and protection under the law through ballot “arranged fairly and impartially in accord with our constitutional principles in order to prevent another historically unconstitutional violation of equal protection pursuant to a ‘separate but equal’ type system.”
For now, superior Court Judge R. Brian McLaughlin has been assigned the case. Election matters in Mercer County typically wind up with the assignment judge, Robert Lougy.