Subject: Re: What statutory deadline did the Forrester campaign supposedly try to avoid in April?
From: Rick Hasen
Date: 10/7/2002, 10:23 AM
To: "Volokh, Eugene" <VOLOKH@mail.law.ucla.edu>
CC: "Election-Law (election-law@majordomo.lls.edu)" <election-law@majordomo.lls.edu>
Reply-to:
rick.hasen@mail.lls.edu

Try the following, with a 48 day period:



19:23-12. Vacancy committee named in petition;  filling vacancies;  certificate;  oath of allegiance

 The signers to petitions for "Choice for President," delegates and alternates to national conventions, for Governor, United States Senator, member of the House of Representatives, State Senator, member of the General Assembly and any county office may name three persons in their petition as a committee on vacancies.
 This committee shall have power in case of death or resignation or otherwise of the person indorsed as a candidate in said petition to fill such vacancy by filing with the Secretary of State in the case of officers to be voted for by  the voters of the entire State or a portion thereof involving more than one county thereof or any congressional district, and with the county clerk in the case of officers to be voted for by the voters of the entire county or any county election district, a certificate of nomination to fill the vacancy.
 Such certificate shall set forth the cause of the vacancy, the name of the person nominated and that he is a member of the same political party as the candidate for whom he is substituted, the office for which he is nominated, the name of the person for whom the new nominee is to be substituted, the fact that the committee is authorized to fill vacancies and such further information as is required to be given in any original petition of nomination.
 The certificate so made shall be executed and sworn to by the members of such committee, and shall upon being filed at least 48 days before election have the same force and effect as the original petition of nomination for the primary election for the general election and there shall be annexed thereto the oath of allegiance prescribed in R.S. 41:1-1 duly taken and subscribed by the person so nominated before an officer authorized to take oaths in this State. The name of the candidate submitted shall be immediately certified to the proper municipal clerks.
 
***
Note also that Forrester's lawyer, Peter Sheridan, wrote an article in the Election Law Journal about his representation of a republican candidate who successfully argued that absentee ballots should be counted even after arriving after the statutory deadline. The delay was caused by concern about anthrax in the mail.  Sheridan's article concludes: "The Appellate Divisions' liberal interpretation of the statutory intent of New Jersey's absentee ballot laws allowed the right of suffrage in an extraordinary time of national emergency and further serves to illustrate that every vote and every attempt to vote matters." Peter G. Sheridan, et al., Neither Snow Nor Rain, but Maybe Anthrax: Bioterrorism and Absentee Ballots in New Jersey, 1 Election Law Journal 415, 520 (2002).
Rick

Volokh, Eugene wrote:
What statutory deadline did the Forrester campaign supposedly try to avoid in April?

        I've been reading this weekend about the charges that in April the Forrester campaign tried to avoid a statutory deadline using much the same arguments that the Democrats used to substitute Lautenberg (see the N.Y. Times excerpt below).  I'm not sure, though, exactly which statute they were trying to avoid -- it's not the 19:13-20 statute, which is at issue now, because that applies only to general election candidates; and my quick search through Title 19 for references to "51" or "51st" didn't reveal any other statute that might seem to cover this.  Can anyone give me a quick pointer?  Thanks,

        Eugene


Mr. Genova also uncovered a legal memorandum from Mr. Forrester's lawyer written in April, when State Senator Diane Allen, one of Mr. Forrester's opponents in the Republican primary, was trying to block him from taking the ballot position of James W. Treffinger. Mr. Treffinger, the Essex County executive, had resigned from the race because of scandal three days earlier, or 40 days before the primary.

Senator Allen maintained that moving Mr. Forrester's name to Mr. Treffinger's place on the ballot would come too late under Title 19 of the state election law, which sets a deadline of 51 days before an election for ballot substitutions. It is the same argument that Mr. Forrester's lawyer, Peter G. Sheridan, made before the State Supreme Court on Wednesday, opposing Mr. Lautenberg's placement on the ballot. The Democrats said that the deadline was merely a guideline.

In April, Mr. Sheridan read the law the way the Democrats do today.

"Strict compliance to statutory requirements and deadlines within Title 19," Mr. Sheridan wrote, "are set aside where such rights may be accommodated without significantly impinging upon the election process."

Mr. Genova said the Forrester campaign was trying to have it both ways. But Mr. Sheridan said today that the two situations were not analogous because "no primary ballots had been issued" in April.


-- 
Rick Hasen
Professor of Law and William M. Rains Fellow
Loyola Law School
919 South Albany Street
Los Angeles, CA  90015-1211
(213)736-1466 - voice
(213)380-3769 - fax
rick.hasen@lls.edu
http://www.lls.edu/academics/faculty/hasen.html