U.S. Senate candidate Andy Kim’s clean sweep of organization lines following Tammy Murphy’s withdrawal changes the circumstances of a federal lawsuit to abolish county organization lines in primary elections, one of the defendant’s lawyers involved in the litigation said in a court filing today.
“Andy Kim will hold the ballot position this very lawsuit alleges is unconstitutional in every county in the state that utilizes this design,” said Mark Natale, who represents Burlington County Clerk Joanne Schwartz. “This new development drastically changes the relevant analysis of irreparable harm, the court’s weighing of the balance of the harms, and it invalidates a large portion of the factual record in this case.”
Natale said that election officials have “built a factual record and legal defense that applies to a fundamentally different context than the current reality, are now prejudiced without the ability to supplement the record to fit this paradigm shift in the election.”
Instead, Natale asked U.S. District Court Judge Zahid Quraishi to hold an emergent case management conference via telephone to discuss the next steps. That is scheduled for 10:30 AM tomorrow.
Quraishi held a one-day hearing last Monday but has not yet issued a ruling.
The filing deadline to run in the June primary election is at 4 PM today.