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Of the 320 vote by mail ballots voided in the Asbury Park City Council race — enough to change the election results — the Monmouth County Board of Elections rejected 236 for failure to disclose who assisted voters in filling out the initial application for the ballot, according to records obtained by the Sun.

The board voided the remainder of the ballots for various reasons including voter signatures not matching county records, voters not listed at the proper address and failure to provide information required with the return envelope containing the ballot.

The records — including copies of the unopened voided ballots — were obtained by the Sun under an Open Public Records Act [OPRA] request.

The losing A-Team slate of candidates plan legal action to get all 320 voided ballots counted, according to A-Team candidates Duanne Small and Jim Keady.

“If this is the reason why the ballots were not counted, that’s unfair to the voters. It disenfranchises voters,” said Small, referring to the 236 ballots voided for lack of assistor information.

Before the election, Keady consulted with Monmouth County Clerk M. Claire French on behalf of the A-Team about handling of VBM applications, he said.

“We followed the rules. We consulted with County Clerk Claire French. Whatever direction she gave, we followed,” Keady said. “We attempted to go above and beyond the direction she gave us to make sure all the legal bases were covered.”

“That’s why we were shocked that 320 mostly minority voters in Asbury Park have been disenfranchised,” he said.

Keady spoke by phone with French in April about VBM ballot application procedures and followed-up with an e-mail confirming the details, he said. Keady declined to provide a copy of the e-mail to the Sun until he received clearance to do so by the A-Team’s attorney.

The election was held on May 14. The five winners were John Moor, Amy Quinn and Myra Campbell of the One Asbury ticket, and incumbents John Loffredo and Susan Henderson of the Forward Asbury ticket.

The A-Team has until May 29 to file for a recount, according to the website of the Division of Elections in the New Jersey Secretary of State’s Office. The new city council is scheduled to be sworn in on July 1.

The Board of Elections counted 345 VBM ballots. The 320 voided ballots were stamped “VOID” with an additional line to list the reason.

On almost all the 236 VBM ballots voided for lack of assistor information, the reason given is a hand-written reference to a section of a state statute — N.J.S.A. 19:63-6 par. 3. Some of those voided ballots did not specify the statute itself, but the reason was given as failure to provide assistor information.

The statute requires the municipal clerk in a municipal election to publish a notice of the availability of VBM ballots which includes the following language: “If any person has assisted you to complete the mail-in ballot application, the name, address and signature of the assister must be provided on the application, and you must sign and date the application for it to be valid to be processed.”

The VBM application also has a section for assistors to provide their name and address, as well as to sign and date.

The records obtained by the Sun under its OPRA request did not disclose how the Board of Elections knew someone assisted a voter on the ballots that were voided for lack of assistor information.

Board of Elections Administrator Robin Major declined comment regarding additional details about the voided ballots. Multiple phone messages previously left for three of the four Board of Elections members were not returned.

The A-Teams’s Keady is within 173 votes of fifth-place winner Henderson. Small is within 176 votes of Henderson. Fourth-place winner Campbell is an additional two votes away.

On the A-Team, the three highest vote getters were Keady with 447 votes, Small with 444 and Daniel Harris with 430.  The three lowest winning candidates were incumbent Henderson with 620 votes, Campbell with 622 and incumbent John Loffredo with 654.

The two other winners were John Moor with 723 votes and Amy Quinn with 716. Ousted incumbent Kevin Sanders remains in sixth place with 596 votes. Loffredo, Henderson and Sanders ran on the Forward Asbury ticket.

The use of ballot messengers by the A-Team has been controversial in the campaign. A voter may designate a messenger to pick up a VBM ballot at the election offices in Freehold and bring it to the voter. Such a messenger designation is made by the voter on the VBM ballot application.

The voter can then return the completed ballot by mail, or by designating the messenger or another person to take it back to Freehold for tabulation. A messenger may handle no more than 10 ballots.

Before the election, the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office executed a search warrant at the A-Team headquarters in connection with an investigation of the messenger ballots. Keady previously told the Sun that the A-Team is fully cooperating with the investigation. All the other campaigns denied the use of ballot messengers.

Earlier this week, a spokesperson for the Prosecutor’s Office would not confirm or deny an investigation, nor would he comment on whether the Prosecutor’s Office provided any information to the Board of Elections before they voided the 320 VBM ballots.

A total of 42 messengers collected 336 VBM ballots for voters, according to records in the election offices. As of the Friday before election day, about 275 of those VBM ballots had been returned for tabulation. An additional 50 VBM ballots arrived after that, according to the county election offices.

The records obtained by the Sun this week did not indicate how many of the 320 voided ballots were among the 336 picked up by messengers for delivery to voters.

The following are the official election results as declared by the Monmouth County Board of Elections:

Councilmembers-At-Large Asbury Park City

9/9 100.00%

	Vote Count	Percent
– Susan Henderson	620	6.96%
– John M. Loffredo	654	7.34%
– Kevin Sanders	596	6.69%
– Gregory Hopson, Sr.	438	4.92%
– William D. Potter	448	5.03%
– Amy Quinn	716	8.04%
– Myra L. Campbell	622	6.98%
– Joe Woerner	584	6.56%
– John B. Moor	723	8.12%
– Talesha A. Crank	459	5.15%
– Randy Thompson	143	1.61%
– Harold V. Suggs	48	0.54%
– Remond Palmer	419	4.71%
– Duanne ‘King’ Small	444	4.99%
– Nora Hyland	389	4.37%
– Daniel Harris	430	4.83%
– James Keady	447	5.02%
– Rosetta ‘Ella’ Johnson	179	2.01%
– Stephen ‘Steve’ Williams	163	1.83%
– Clevette ‘Rasul’ Hill	126	1.41%
– Shonna ‘Walker’ Famularo	138	1.55%
– Dorvil ‘Gregory’ Gilles	110	1.24%
Write-In	9	0.10%
Total	8,905	100.00%

 

 

 

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