The Moderate Party, a fledgling third party organization, today asked the New Jersey Supreme Court to hear its challenge to the state’s fusion voting laws, the latest step in the party’s yearlong effort to bring fusion voting to New Jersey.
Since last summer, Moderate Party leaders have been fighting against the state’s election laws, which dictate that candidates may only run under one party banner in a general election. That case is currently before the Superior Court’s Appellate Division, but Moderate Party founder Rick Wolfe said that the looming 2024 elections mean that the case should be heard by the state’s highest court as soon as possible.
“Our party must make nominations by early June 2024 for important offices, including Congress,” Wolfe said. “To do so, we need our lawsuit decided well before then. Delay in deciding our case would prevent us from exercising our constitutional rights with respect to the 2024 election, which is a critical election year in New Jersey and at the federal level.”
The state judiciary previously shot down an attempt by the Moderate Party’s opponents to dismiss the case or bump it down to another division; it remains to be seen if the courts will be more amenable to the Moderate Party’s request.
Wolfe, a former GOP mayor of East Amwell, initially formed the party in June of last year with the sole purpose of aiding then-Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-Ringoes), who was in a tough fight for re-election. Malinowski attempted to get onto the general election ballot as the nominee of both the Democratic and Moderate Parties, but state election officials refused, saying that state law prevented him from accepting more than one nomination.
Malinowski ended up losing re-election, but the effort he kickstarted to legalize fusion voting has taken on a surprising life of its own. Former Gov. Christine Todd Whitman and former Senator Bob Torricelli have both gotten behind the fusion voting effort, as have several organizations like the ACLU of New Jersey.
