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The manager of an opposing campaign has filed a complaint with the Monmouth County Clerk of Elections, stating that the A-Team’s city council candidates and volunteers are mishandling messenger ballot applications.

Stephania Warren, manager of the AP Out Front campaign, wrote a letter to County Clerk M. Claire French stating that A-Team candidates and volunteers completed some messenger ballot applications incorrectly, with campaign volunteers filling in portions of the mail-in ballots that should have been filled out by the voters themselves.

Voters were instructed to sign the ballot applications after volunteers had already filled out some sections of the ballots, Warren wrote. Also, some voters did not authorize the volunteers to act as their messengers or did not know what was meant by a messenger designation, she wrote.

Warren also states that candidates Duanne Small and Remond Palmer, and A-Team campaign volunteer Darryl Hammary, “solicited numerous voters for vote-by-mail ballot requests, personally obtained the completed applications, and then put in or allowed to be put in the applications, at a later date, the names of other persons who did not actually assist the affected voters.”

Warren believes these actions to be “in violation of the applicable election law statutes and the rights and legitimate expectations of these voters,” she wrote.

She requested French’s office investigate the vote-by-mail ballot requests and “take appropriate action, including but not limited to deleting any messenger request and instead ensuring mailing of the requested ballots directly to the voters,” she wrote.

Warren represents council candidates Clevette Hill, Rosetta Johnson, Dorvil Gillis, Shonna Famularo and Stephen Williams. Her letter was dated April 11.

The A-Team consists of Small [pictured, left], Palmer, Jim Keady [pictured, right], Daniel Harris and Nora Hyland. Small maintains that he and his running mates have followed all of the applicable rules.

“We are confident that we’ve done everything right and we will continue to do everything right in this election,” Small said. “Change is coming to Asbury Park and it’s sad that you see individuals who don’t want to see change.”

Small added that he has seen people affiliated with AP Out Front handling mail-in ballot applications as well.

Contacted by phone this week, French said that her office is taking a close look at the letter.

“The voter trusts you with his ballot,” she said of messengers carrying ballots. “I need to know for sure that you’re the person that he authorized to carry his or her ballot.”

Messengers may only carry up to 10 ballots each, and cannot be council candidates. A council candidate cannot even assist with the messenger ballot process, French said. Assistors are named on the ballot application. Messengers are required to sign affidavits stating that the voter authorized them to be their messenger, French said.

Any voter can request a mail-in messenger ballot, French said. In the past, they needed to be out of town during the election or unable to vote because of work, but now those ballots are available to all by request.

If a voter has already voted by messenger ballot and wishes to change their vote, they can call French’s office and ask for a new vote-by-mail ballot, she said. Voters can also go to French’s office in Freehold between 8:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. to cast their votes in person until the week before the election.

“Messengers should take their job very seriously because if they’re not who they say they are, they could get into a lot of trouble,” French said. “The statute does have certain penalties.”

French’s office is “taking this very seriously,” she said.

“We’ll do the best we can and we only want what everybody wants — a fair election in Asbury Park,” she said.

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