OPINION
I make the case that ELEC is committing detrimental action to the democratic process in New Jersey. Making this case is a risky move for me personally, as it may invite retaliation, however as a mature leader, I’ve learned to discern real matters of integrity, and this is one of them. What ELEC is doing should alarm all civic leaders in the state and invite oversight from the federal government.
Regulation and compliance are somewhat a forte for me. I finished my military career as a Command Inspector General, working for a two star, and I also was a big 4 consultant with a skillset in banking compliance. In 2018 I oversaw the Afghan Ministry of Interior’s transparency and accountability effort, and a 21-year military career gave me my fair share of participating in audits, inspections, and investigations. I’ve had my fill of conducting internal investigations and producing command policy.
“ELEC” is a compliance entity designed to act in the best interests of the political process, monitoring for the public, the finances of PACs, County Committees, Candidates for Office and lobbyists. This way, the citizens can observe how money is being spent for elections, and who is spending the money. Anyone can go on the ELEC website and see exactly what was spent on political purposes.
What ELEC is not supposed to be, is a disruptor of the Democratic process. They are supposed to be an impartial body focused merely on transparency of where politicians and organizations get their money. ELEC can fine groups for late reports or hold groups to account for not using their monies for legitimate purposes. When ELEC disrupts, interrupts or suppresses the democratic process by timing audits amidst the middle of a primary election, we then ask the question: “Why?”
This last week, every single county party committee, both Democrat and Republican, was sent certified letters of an audit for every single county committee in the state, Republican and Democrat, directing the gathering of an exhaustive list of requirements that are normally uploaded to the ELEC site anyway during quarterly filings. ELEC effectively regulates already. Last year, political opposition’s weaponization of complaints led to the Sussex Republican Committee being fined for about $1900 for two slightly late filings once, both in 2023, stemming from the transition between party leadership, this is how ELEC can be punitive on committees that file late. Often, political opposition weaponizes the making of anonymous complaints, and dishonest villains’ often mis-characterize the publicly shown expenses to an unaware public, this is the price of transparency. County committees, unlike most PACs and Election campaigns, are run by unpaid volunteers, therefore they withstand the higher cost of villain’s mischaracterizations and misuse of transparency. ELECs draconian audit has just empowered the worst of the worst to attack the grassroots committees in support of big donors and special interests.
The County Committee system concept consists of elected members of each party from every municipal district. The purpose of this system is to ensure the grassroots of a party can raise money and support candidates most aligned with their party’s ideals, and ensure the best candidates are supported to compete with the opposition. Though no system is perfect, this process is elected from top to bottom and is a check and balance to any one politician achieving overwhelming power. This is why a county committee can be the legal medium to accept much larger donations than an individual candidate, where all members of the party can have a direct say in their candidates for office.
The primary election season is a time consuming one for a county committee consisting of volunteers who have careers and jobs. Therefore, I offer the timing of wide sweeping and exhaustive audit is destructive and constraining for the grassroots influence in the primary of 2026. In my personal view, this is effectively political interference. Also, the targeting of committees, who are dedicated to party platforms and are not intended to be support nodes for specific candidates, is errant, and aimed at the heart of our democratic progress.
I ask the following questions:
1. Why is ELEC targeting the county committees instead of PACs or candidates?
2. How does ELEC propose to manage, with integrity, such a wide sweeping audit with such a small force of compliance officers?
3. How long does ELEC expect these audits to last?
4. Does ELEC plan to enact fines on committees, utterly breaking them financially?
5. Who in ELEC made this decision to execute such a poorly timed and draconian audit?
6. Do anti Party Line Polticos, such as Andy Kim, support this action?
7. Is this Audit an attempt to destroy the party system, empowering wealthy, nationally funded people like Mikie Sherrill, so they can act with impunity unchecked by party committees?
8. Is this draconian audit inspired by National PACs, dark money groups, or any other entity that seeks to consolidate fundraising power?
9. Is this merely a bungling decision, designed for bureaucrats to make their jobs seem more valuable?
I ask these questions out of concern for the power of the grassroots, the working families, the first responders, the veterans and trade union workers who, with their jobs and families, volunteer their time, putting themselves in the public eye, to put the voice of the constituency closer to political power. If we allow ELEC to break the county committees, the influencers of the future will be the PACs, the lobbyists and the big donors who can go directly to candidates and be immune from what the people’s voice is.
Joseph LaBarbera is the Sussex County Republican Chairman.