Former Morris Freeholders sue to stop convention on organizational line

Two former Morris County Republican leaders filed a complaint charging a planned meeting of the Morris County Republican Committee where committee people will decide whether to adopt a party line was scheduled without regard for the organization’s bylaws Friday.

Morris County Republicans plan to meet Saturday to vote on whether the county should adopt an organizational line that would allow county committee people there to give chosen candidates a favorable ballot position as Democrats gain ground in the once solidly Republican county.

The plaintiffs are John Sette, whos served as GOP county chairman for 17 years, and David Scapicchio, a former freeholder, argue Morris County Republican Chairwoman Laura Ali did not provide two week’s written notice for the convention, as the organization’s bylaws require.

The meeting was noticed in a letter mailed Dec. 23, but the letter did not provide a date, time or place for the meeting, Scapicchio and Sette, a former Morris Republican chairman, said in the filing.

That letter said only that the meeting would be held in the second week of January, though it was later noticed in a Jan. 8 email.

The two Republicans, who oppose the measure to a party line the county committee is set to vote on tomorrow, raised concerns about the lack of a secret ballot, charging the party organization cancelled a request for a voting machine and claiming the software the committee plans to use does nothing to maintain ballot secrecy.

They also charge many of the committee’s elderly members lack a computer and would not have the opportunity to vote electronically.

The two former freeholders also take issue with the time and date of the meeting, claiming a vote at 9:30 a.m. Saturday morning could disenfranchise Jewish members observing the sabbath and those who work during the scheduled time.

They want a judge to suspend Saturday’s vote and enjoin the Morris County Republican Committee from conducting an election on the matter until the alleged breaches of its bylaws are remedied.

They also want the court to compel the committee to provide contact info for members to the two former freeholders, who claim Ali has so far withheld such information from them.

They also raise complaints that, while the Morris GOP mailing list was used to boost the organizational line measure, its opponents were not provided the opportunity to use the mailing list.

Note: The law replacing freeholders with county commissioners was not retroactive.  Accordingly, the New Jersey Globe will refer to anyone who previously held the post of freeholder prior to the effective date of the law as former freeholders since they never held the post of county commissioner.