Appellate court rejects Penns Grove mayor’s bid to get back on ballot

Penns Grove Mayor LaDaena Thomas will seek re-election as a write-in candidate after a state appellate court affirmed a ruling that tossed her from the general election ballot.

Thomas, an independent seeking her second term, was tossed from the ballot last week after Superior Court Judge Benjamin Morgan found that her seeking write-in votes in the primary despite filing as an independent violated New Jersey’s Sore Loser Law.

That leaves Democrat John Washington, a former mayor who was ousted by Thomas in 2019, on the ballot against Republican Louis Pasquale.

John Rambo, the owner of a local auto repair shop and a Washington foe, launched a write-in campaign on Thomas’ behalf in the Democratic primary.  Thomas denied being part of that, although she did mention it on Facebook.

Morgan found that the write-in campaign was enough to toss her from the ballot under a statute that doesn’t permit unsuccessful primary candidates from running as independents.

“We conclude that the trial court correctly rejected Thomas’s contention that she was not responsible for the postings on her Facebook page.  As noted above, the postings are all written in the first person.  If they were posted by another individual, they certainly conveyed the message to the reader that they were written and approved by Thomas. Thomas also conceded that that person ‘co-controlled’ the page with her,” Appellate Court Judge Michael Haas wrote in the ruling.  “As the trial court pointed out, Thomas never took down the postings or disavowed them.”

The appellate division also found that Thomas could have participated in the court hearing by Zoom, even though she was undergoing heart surgery at the time.