Three administrative law judges will hear challenges to the nominating petitions of independent presidential candidates Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Shiva Ayyadurai, and Peter Sonski on Monday and decide whether their names will appear on the general election ballot in November.
Kennedy and Ayyadurai face challenges to their eligibility from two prominent New Jersey election lawyers: Scott Salmon claims that the state’s Sore Loser Law applies to Kennedy, who sought the Democratic nomination for president before deciding to run as an independent; and Raj Parikh believes Ayyadurai is constitutionally ineligible to run for president because he is not a natural born U.S. citizen.
The Bergen County Young Republicans have filed a challenge to Sonski, the American Solidarity Party candidate, alleging that 374 of his 985 petition signatures are invalid, leaving him short of the 800 signatures he requires to be on the ballot.
There will be some pressure on the judges after rocky performances of Kim Belin and Susana Guerrero in high-profile petition challenges in the special Democratic primary for Congress in New Jersey’s 10th district. Secretary of State Tahesha Way rejected Belin’s ruling once and Guerrero’s two times, saying both needed to do better jobs. It will be up to the judges to decide if they want to emulate Belin and Guerrero, or model the way another administrative law judge, Robert Herman, handled a challenge to the petition of Libertarian U.S. Senate candidate Kenneth Kaplan.
Ernest Bongiovanni will hear the Kennedy case, Wiliam Cooper has been assigned to the Ayyadurai challenge, and Judy Lieberman will preside over the Sonski petition fight.
All three judges are Christie appointees: Bongiovanni once ran for school board in Wall and has contributed to Republicans; Cooper, a former Somerset county counsel, was transition counsel to Christie after the 2009 election; and Lieberman was an assistant counsel to Christie assigned to the appointments office.
Cooper has the easiest assignment since all Parikh needs to do is read the Constitution’s three qualifications for the presidency: the President must be at least 35 years old, a natural-born citizen, and have lived in the United States for at least 14 years.
Bongiovanni will need to determine if Kennedy’s challenge to Joe Biden for the Democratic presidential nomination counts as a previous candidacy.
Salmon argues that it is irrefutable that Kennedy actively sought the 2024 Democratic nomination for president and only flipped to an independent run after it became clear he could not dislodge Biden from renomination. Kennedy ended his challenge to Biden in October 2023.
Election laws are frequently fungible in New Jersey, and sometimes, the ruling depends on the judge.
Salmon became an expert on that issue after a South Jersey judge tossed Penns Grove Mayor LaDaena Thomas, an independent, from the general election ballot last year. An individual not affiliated with Thomas’ campaign used Facebook to urge voters to write in Thomas in the Democratic primary; while the first-term mayor didn’t seek votes, she alluded to it on Facebook, and that was enough for Judge Benjamin Morgan to kick her off the ballot. Salmon worked on that case.
In 2022, a judge in Monmouth County found that an unsuccessful write-in candidate in a Colts Neck GOP primary could not file as an independent.
After an East Rutherford councilman who lost the GOP primary was offered an open slot on the Democratic ticket in 2018, Judge Estela De La Cruz found that the Loser Law applied and wouldn’t permit Jeffrey Lahullier to run as a Democrat. (The following year, Lahullier ran for mayor as a Democrat and won.)
But an inconsistent judiciary went the other way in 2003. Four-term Assemblywoman Arline Friscia (D-Woodbridge) was dropped from the Middlesex Democratic line in 2003, she ran in the primary and came within 735 votes of keeping her seat.
Then, Republicans recruited her to switch parties and seek re-election on their slate. Democrats went to court, arguing that Friscia was violating the Sore Loser Law. A judge ruled that Friscia was eligible to become a replacement candidate for the winner of the Republican primary; her Hail Mary bid to keep her seat failed in the Democratic-leaning 19th district, and she lost by about 3,200 votes.
Earlier this month, the Division of Elections rejected a nominating petition filed by Peter Vallorosi, who wanted to run as an independent for the U.S. Senate after previously running as a Republican. He filed for the GOP primary but withdrew after it became clear he didn’t have enough signatures on his nominating petition to sustain a challenge.
Ayyadurai grew up in Livingston and attended high school with former Gov. Chris Christie, but it’s unclear whether they traveled in the same circles. Christie was class president and a backup catcher on the baseball team.
A former town selectman and school board member in Connecticut, Sonski supports a Christian democracy and is campaigning as a pro-life, anti-gay marriage candidate.
In 2020, Salmon filed a challenge that forced Kanye West off the ballot as an independent candidate for the presidency.