A Superior Court Judge today hinted that he might continue a lawsuit concerning the abolition of Republican organization lines for the June primary until Thursday, a move that could put the state in violation of a federal law that requires military overseas vote-by-mail ballots to start going out on Saturday.
“I think that we need to have an order put together and served on the candidates directly related to these plaintiffs, telling them that we will see them Thursday at 1:30, along with everybody else, to decide any interim relief I grant right now against these defendants can whether they wish to be heard on that,” Judge John E. Harrington said.
It’s unlikely that counties could begin printing ballots on Friday and be ready to commence mailing vote-by-mail ballots on Saturday.
In a consolidated court hearing that started on April 5, Harrington today began to consider that a lawyer representing for Republican candidates – Albert Harshaw, Shirley Maia-Cusick, Gregg Mele and Hector Castillo – didn’t properly notice candidates whose names appear on the ballot, and possibly some election officials.
Harrington had issued a verbal order to notice key parties last week, but by later in the week had appeared to have forgotten. Late Friday, he told the lawyer to send notices to some candidates.
“This is this is a road to mistakes that will just totally confuse everybody: the clerks and the voters, and it’s just too late in the day to really do all this,” said Gordon Gollum, an attorney representing the Somerset County Clerk.
Tom Kobin, a lawyer representing the Morris County Clerk, said the delay would cost an additional $55,000 “on top of some $90,000 that’s already been spent.”
“You can’t possibly serve all the interested parties in this case because all the other individual candidates have rights here,” Kobin said. “That’s why this should all been dealt with in the federal court. Plain and simple. That’s the time these candidates sat on their rights.”
Veteran election law expert John Carbone, who represents several county clerks from both parties, said that the plaintiffs need to post a bond to cover added costs, as required by the New Jersey Supreme Court in a 2002 case involving the switching of Democratic U.S. Senate candidates.
“It’s plaintiff who has the deficient pleadings, plaintiff who failed to make proper service, plaintiff who failed to include the correct defendants,” Carbone said. “Because of their deficiencies, their errors should not default befall the public and the taxpayers. If plaintiff wants to continue should we demand that they post the bond.”
Harrington’s hearing remains in progress.