Facing tight deadlines to print and mail ballots for the June primary election, Superior Court Judge John E. Harrington accelerated two combined Republican lawsuits on organization lines before a hearing tomorrow.
Burlington County Republicans are suing County Clerk Joanne Schwartz, a Democrat, after she decided to strip the GOP of their line. A suit filed in Mercer County by U.S. Senate candidate Albert Harshaw and House candidates Shirley Maia-Cusick, Gregg Mele, and Hector Castillo seeks to invalidate Republican lines in the rest of the state.
Late yesterday, Burlington County Assignment Judge Jeanne Covert ordered GOP line lawsuits in Burlington and Mercer into one but gave seven days for all parties to be noticed. She appeared to miss or ignore a federal law requiring mail-in ballots for overseas military voters to go out on April 20.
But Harrington fixed that today, ordering all parties to be noticed by 4:30 this afternoon.
A preliminary hearing on the Mercer lawsuit is set for tomorrow at 11 AM. A hearing on the Mercer portion of the case is scheduled for 1:30 PM.
Both legal actions stem from a preliminary injunction signed by U.S. District Court Judge Zahid Quraishi on March 29 mandating the use of office block ballots in the June 4 primary. The issue became more baffling the following day when Quraishi clarified his order to apply only to Democrats since Republicans never challenged the process.
Last week, Harrington set an expedited briefing schedule with briefs due today and tomorrow and an in-person hearing on Wednesday.
Further muddying the issue is an expedited appeal of Quraishi’s order before the Third Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals. Oral arguments are set for Friday morning.