Judge will decide if he’ll allow recounts in close, tied Gloucester county races

A Superior Court judge will hear a request for a recount in some Republican county committee races in Monroe Township in Gloucester County, but two close contests won’t shift control of the local party organization in a municipality where an off-the-line slate of candidates won roughly four times as many seats.

The Republican municipal chairman, Fernando Powers, wants a recount in the 6th district, where Brooke Rivello and Brenda Brown, tied at fourteen votes each, and in the 22nd district, where Christopher Cugini defeated Joseph Camaioni by one vote, 36-35.

Rivello and Camaioni ran on the Republican organization line; Brown and Cugini ran on a slate headed by Republican State Senate candidate Christopher Del Borrello.  Ties in county committee races are decided after a vote by the full county committee.

The off-the-line candidates won fourteen of the eighteen contested seats.

Powers also wants three write-it candidates to be certified as the winners.  The Monroe municipal clerk has taken the view that a successful write-in candidate must receive at least the number of voters as signatures needed on nominating petitions to get on the ballot.  Other counties view a county committee election as the final election and award the seat  – if accepted by the winner – to the candidate who simply receives the most votes.

But there is a major flaw in Powers’ case: one of the write-in winners Powers listed as a plaintiff, Raymond Trombetta, died on June 2 at age 88.

In the 7th district, Kevin Pluta won as a write-in with three votes, the number required to get on the ballot in that district.

In his own district, Powers lost re-election to the county committee by 28 percentage points, 35-20, to Travis Cortes.   He is expected to be challenged for municipal chairman by Mark Kozachyn.  Powers alleges that a group of Republicans held their own reorganization and elected Kozachyn, the New Jersey Globe confirmed.

Two ex-Democrats who switched parties last year and lost Republican primaries: former Mayor Richard DiLucia and former Councilwoman Kathleen Falcone, lost county committee bids by huge margins running on the organization line.

Gloucester County Clerk James Hogan, a Democrat, is opposing the recount request.  His attorney, John Carbone, says that Powers doesn’t have standing to request a recount on behalf of others.    Powers is representing himself.

In a court filing, Deputy Attorney General George Cohen agreed with Carbone, representing the Board of Elections, saying that Powers “has no standing to bring this petition for a recount on behalf of other candidates from different elections.”

New Jersey does not have automatic recounts.

Superior Court Judge Timothy Chell denied a request by the New Jersey Globe to livestream Thursday’s hearing.  Chell decided to conduct an in-person hearing, which forces community members and interested parties to go to Woodbury if they want to observe the proceedings.

This story was updated at 8:08 PM.