Morris County Republican Chair Laura Marie Ali is seeking to intervene in a lawsuit filed by Rep. Andy Kim (D-Moorestown) challenging the constitutionality of organization lines in New Jersey.
Her emergent application came one day after U.S. District Court Judge Zahid Quraishi clarified his ruling ordering office block ballots to apply only to the Democratic primary, leaving the current line system in place for the June 4 GOP primary. Quraishi issued a bombshell decision on Friday mandating office block ballots.
Essex County Clerk Christopher Durkin, who was a defendant in Kim’s lawsuit, today sided with Kim on how ballots should be designed.
“I am in favor of block ballot voting. I am confident Essex County will conduct a fair and free election,” Durkin said. “Our ballots will be clear and concise to voters. The voting systems we have in Essex County are the best in New Jersey.”
Durkin said that many county clerks who run elections in New Jersey are more concerned about the late timing of the ruling and the last-minute changes to the electoral process—the ability to conduct an election in accordance with federal and state deadlines.
“My county clerk colleagues are the most principled and dedicated public servants I know. They don’t need ‘the line’ to be re-elected,” he said.
Two other county clerks, Junior Maldonado of Hudson and Joanne Schwartz of Burlington, have withdrawn their motions to stay Quraishi’s preliminary injunction and will not participate in the appeal.
Schwartz will “take steps to comply with the order and educate voters on the new ballot design,” her attorney, Mark Natale, said in a court filing.
Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop said he and Hudson County Commissioner Bill O’Dea spoke with Maldonado on Saturday morning and praised the county clerk for his decision to drop out of the lawsuit.
“It’s a good and important step. Junior said he will allocate the money towards voter education instead of legal fees for an appeal,” Fulop said. “I hope other counties follow.”
Fulop is a candidate for the Democratic nomination for governor next year; O’Dea is a candidate to replace Fulop as mayor.
Mike Crispi, the co-chairman of America First Republicans of New Jersey, said his organization will seek to join the lawsuit in support of office block ballots.
If a federal court can protect the rights of Democrat voters, it must protect our rights too.” Crispi said. “Quraishi said that the ‘public interest clearly favors the protection of constitutional rights. Republicans deserve to have their constitutional rights protected just as much as Democrats.”
Morris GOP intervention
Peter King, an attorney representing the Morris County Republican Committee, told Quraishi on Sunday that “intervention on an expedited basis is still necessary to the extent that the letter order is appealed directly, or if this court in future proceedings, or the Third Circuit on appeal, issue rulings that do impact future Republican primaries.”
“No individual or entity which is currently a party to this case can adequately represent the Republican Intervenors’ interests as to the scope of the court’s order or on the impact on their First Amendment associational rights,” King wrote. “No entity currently in this case can address whether ballot design issues are nonjusticiable political questions.”
King told Quraishi that Republican intervenors “also have an interest in protecting their right to freedom of association and to communicate that right to voters.”
“Their candidates have a right to appear together on the ballot so that voters are aware of the relationship and shared values,” he stated in a Sunday letter to the judge. “Republican intervenors do not believe that simply permitting the same slogan is sufficient to protect their freedom of association, and also believe that the legislature, not the judiciary, is properly empowered with making decisions regarding bracketing, ballot design, and ballot placement.”
In their court filing, Morris County Republicans also took a swipe at the state attorney general, Matt Platkin.
“While traditionally the attorney general would defend the statutes as passed by the legislature, here, the attorney general has decided not only not to defend those statutes, but to take a position affirmatively opposed to advocating the state’s interests as set forth by the legislature when the legislature passed the ballot bracketing and placement statutes,” King argued. “There is no entity currently in this case to provide counter-balancing constitutional arguments or state policy interests on behalf of the political party organizations who wish to associate through ‘the line’ on the ballot or on behalf of candidates who wish to so affiliate with those organizations.”
Lawyers for Kim, the strong favorite to win the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate, and two others, have until noon tomorrow to file their objection to a bid to stay his ruling.