The Monmouth County Prosecutor’s office confirmed this week that they continue to investigate allegations of election fraud in Allenhurst, Deal, and Loch Arbour, where the winners of the May non-partisan municipal election have already taken office.
There were meteoric voter registration surges in all three wealthy, oceanfront municipalities in advance of the local election, causing some election officials to wonder if out-of-state residents were surreptitiously joining the voter rolls at their summer homes to influence local elections.
In Loch Arbour, former Mayor Paul Fernicola was running unopposed for re-election to the Board of Commissioners when he announced two weeks before Election Day that he was dropping out of the race; he cited the ongoing harassment of him and his family by local residents as the reason for his sudden exit.
Incumbents Jack Hedaya (114) and Jason Elo (113) won new terms, but the third seat was captured by Saul Tawil. With 104 votes, Tawil defeated Fernicola (69), whose name remained on the ballot, Jeffrey Schwartz (62), and two former commissioners, Alfred Cheswick (61) and Denis D’Angelo (2).
Now, in addition to the criminal probe, an election has been filed in Loch Arbour, where a group of seventeen local voters want the election overturned after alleging in a lawsuit that more than eighty illegal voters were cast by non-residents.
The lawsuit also claims that Tawil, who is now the mayor, did not meet the one-year residency requirement to hold public office.
“On Election Day, the Superior Court of New Jersey, Law Division, rejected approximately eighteen people who sought to vote because they could not demonstrate their residency in the area,” prominent election lawyer Scott Salmon said in a lawsuit filed last week. “As a result of these actions, it is not reasonably possible to determine the actual winners of the election, and so the results of the election must be disregarded and a new election ordered, with all individuals who illegally voted excluded from being able to vote in the new election.”
Salmon claims that “illegal votes were counted sufficiently in number to change the result of the election, cast a cloud on the election, and raise sufficient factual basis to declare the election void and invalid.”
He wants the election results annulled and a do-over contest held.
Superior Court Judge Linda Grasso Jones has scheduled a hearing for July 9.
Yesterday, Salmon objected to Grasso Jones’ order to serve 83 defendants within two days and asked for permission to conduct service by household, which would reduce the cost – he estimated that to be as much as $9,545 – to less than $2,000.
In Allenhurst, leaders from a fast-growing Syrian Jewish community took control of the local government after voter registration went up 75% in advance of the May election. Registration in Loch Arbour, jumped 92% jump from last year – the largest increase in the state.
Mayor David McLaughlin and his two running mates lost by a greater than 2-1 margin against challengers Frieda Adjmi, Theresa Manziano-Santoro, and Joseph R. Dweck. Turnout was about 60.5%. Adjmi is now the mayor.
“The Prosecutor’s Office can confirm the existence of an active investigation into allegations that certain individuals may have improperly registered to vote and/or voted in a previous election in Monmouth County,” Mark Spivey, a spokesman for the office, said in May. “While we cannot discuss any specific details of the investigation at this time, what we can say is that we take any and all allegations of interference with free and fair elections with the utmost seriousness, as ensuring their integrity is a fundamental responsibility of any functioning democracy.”