Superior Court Judge Robert Brenner said Wednesday that he would sign an order requiring a new ballot-position drawing for the Toms River Regional Board of Education election at 10 AM today, potentially upending Ocean County’s preparations to mail ballots to military and overseas voters — and perhaps in violation of federal law.
Brenner and Laura Benson, an attorney representing the Ocean County Clerk’s Office, acknowledged during the hearing that the new drawing could delay the mailing of ballots beyond the September 19 deadline.
Federal law requires states to send ballots to military and overseas voters no later than 45 days before a federal election.
It was not clear whether Brenner has the authority to order any action that would delay those ballots. Neither Brenner nor Benson mentioned the federal Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment Act, commonly known as the MOVE Act, during the hearing, and neither indicated that they distinguished between the state deadline and the federal one.
School board candidates Elizabeth Huber and Laura Picurro brought the case, challenging an August 10 ballot drawing conducted by the Ocean County Clerk’s Office. They argued that the clerk improperly grouped them with candidate Anthony Colucci because all three used the slogan “Finance, Education, Accountability,” even though they had not submitted a written request to be bracketed together.
The plaintiffs also challenged the use of transparent capsules in the drawing and argued that the process was compromised because Deputy County Clerk Ashley Lamb was both an employee of the clerk’s office and a candidate in the school board election.
The challenged drawing placed the three-candidate “Protect What Matters” group, which includes Lamb, first; the Huber-Picurro-Colucci group second; and candidate Kristen Hanson’s “Educating Students Responsibly” slogan third.
The clerk’s office denied wrongdoing, saying the candidates voluntarily associated themselves through their common slogan and that the drawing complied with state law. The county also certified that Lamb was not present during the drawing.
Brenner’s order is expected to require only properly documented brackets and capsules that conceal their contents. The order could also require Ocean County to revise ballots already prepared.
Benson told the court that the ballots had already been designed and were going to the printer in the next few days. She could not guarantee that a new drawing would create a delay, saying an outside ballot printing company needed to mail all ballots at once.
Huber and Picurro were represented by attorneys Donald Burke and Donald Burke, Jr.