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Members of the Asbury Together campaign have filed over 300 challenges to vote-by-mail [VBM] ballot applications with the Monmouth County Clerk of Elections that call into question whether members of the opposing A-Team ticket and the ticket’s campaign volunteers properly handled messenger ballot applications, according to an Asbury Together campaign release issued Thursday.

Hundreds of the ballot applications “appear to have been filled out improperly by campaign workers acting as ‘assistors’ and ‘messengers’ to voters,” the release states.

State election law allows voters who apply for VBM ballots the use of an assistor to complete the application and a messenger who, at the designation of the voter, can physically deliver the application to Freehold, take custody of the ballot and carry that ballot back to the voter. The law asserts anyone who assists with the application must “be fully and properly disclosed” on the ballot application, the release stated.

Upon examination of the ballot applications, Asbury Together candidates documented multiple issues with the applications in the over 300 challenge forms submitted to the board of election’s office this week. Problems with the applications include multiple handwritings on individual applications but lack of assistor information, more than two or three handwritings which indicate additional assistors helped fill out the application but failed to disclose themselves, signatures of voters not matching, and dates of voter and assistor signatures not matching, the release stated.

The board of election’s office has accepted the challenges and their board of commissioners will examine the applications on Monday, according to a representative from the office.

The use of messenger ballots was controversial in the 2013 city council election with an investigation by the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office culminating in the execution of a search warrant at the headquarters of the then A-Team slate. Last month, Prosecutor’s Office spokesman Webster confirmed that the investigation of the 2013 election had been closed with no charges filed.

Separate from the criminal investigation, the Monmouth County Board of Elections disallowed 332 vote-by-mail ballots and 32 provisional ballots which, if counted, would have changed the results of the election. Members of the 2013 A-Team slate challenged the board’s decision, but Judge Dennis O’Brien ruled in July 2013 to uphold the board’s disqualification of the ballots.

In his ruling Judge O’Brien found proper procedure was not followed in the handling of the ballot applications, which led to the disqualification of those ballots.

“While we were going door-to-door we were meeting voters who advised us they didn’t designate a messenger, then [triCityNews and asburyparksun.com publisher] Dan Jacobson’s article came out [in the Oct. 9 edition of the triCityNews, which alleged the current A-Team was not following proper procedures] and that led us to meet with the county and address our concerns,” said Councilwoman Amy Quinn, who seeks re-election on the Asbury Together ticket. “We reviewed the VBM applications and noted similar issues as last year, which include multiple handwritings on a single application.”

Two candidates from that prior A-Team ticket — Palmer and council candidate Duanne Small — are running again under this year’s A-Team — Zero Tolerance banner.

Small disagrees with the Asbury Together challenge because the clerk of elections office would not issue ballots if they saw something wrong with the application.

“Its not the A-team’s problem that Asbury Together don’t have the ground team or the operation that the A-Team has to get the vote out, so they are crying, ‘foul’,” he said. “We trust and believe that our county election board is doing the right thing and will continue to do the right thing for the voters in Monmouth County, according to the law. The A-Team has faith in the election board, unlike Asbury Together.”

But the Asbury Together statement contends the county clerk’s office would not easily notice a problem unless a significant amount of applications had been received and reviewed comparatively.

“It is very difficult for the county clerk’s office to determine a pattern as they receive applications piecemeal; only when hundreds are viewed together, at the same time, does a pattern emerge. Once that a pattern is clear, we believe that it must be addressed,” the Asbury Together statement reads.

Small also disparaged the Asbury Together campaign for seeking to discount the votes of residents.

“It just goes to show that Asbury Together, they are talking about their name is “Asbury Together”, but you now have John Moor and Amy Quinn — especially Amy Quinn, who is a member of the  Democratic party — are now challenging other Democrats’ right to vote,” Small said. “If you are talking about bringing Asbury Park Together and bridging a divide, why are you challenging the people’s right to vote?”

The statement from Asbury Together claims their candidates sought to raise the issue on Oct. 15 with Monmouth County Clerk Claire French, so that her office and the board of elections could have ample time to rule whether proper procedure was used to handle the ballot applications, and if not, to find another way to ensure voter’s voices were still heard. They also sent a follow-up letter on Oct. 20 outlining their concerns, according to the statement.

“We raised our concerns early hoping the clerk’s office would examine the vote-by-mail applications and, if proper procedure was not followed, create a contingency plan to ensure all Asbury Park voters can cast a vote in the Nov. 4 election,”Asbury Together candidates are quoted as saying in the statement. “We are still hopeful the county clerk’s office and board of elections can make a speedy determination so that every voter has the opportunity to vote in the upcoming election.”

As of Monday, a total 751 vote-by-mail [VBM] ballots were been requested by voters in Asbury Park. Of those, 400 were delivered to voters by an authorized messenger, according to data provided by the clerk of elections office.

Remond Palmer, the ticket’s candidate for mayor, did not immediately return the Sun’s request for comment.

All five city council seats are up for grabs in the November 4 election due to a change of government referendum approved by voters last November, which cut short the terms of all five seated council members sworn in July 1, 2013. It is the first time in the city’s history the voting public will directly elect their mayor. Three seats on the Asbury Park Board of Education are also being contested.

The full news release from the Asbury Together ticket appears below, verbatim:

Asbury Together has submitted over 300 challenge forms to Vote By Mail (VBM) applications that appear to have been filled out improperly by campaign workers acting as “assistors” and “messengers” to voters.

Election law allows voters applying for VBM ballots an “assistor” in completing the application and a “messenger” to bring the application to Freehold and carry a ballot back to the voter. The same law specifically requires that anybody giving assistance on the application be fully and properly disclosed.

Multiple problems with the applications were documented in the submitted challenge forms, including, but not limited to: multiple handwritings (2) but lack of assister information, multiple handwritings (2-3) indicating additional assistors but no information on the other assistor or assistors provided, voter signatures not matching, dates of voter and assistor signatures not matching.

With hundreds of ballots getting handled by messengers partial to a specific campaign, proper procedure is key to ensuring integrity of the election process. Rosetta Johnson, who joined the “A-Team Zero Tolerance” ticket for this election, expressed grave concerns about the same type of operation when she was a candidate on a rival ticket, “AP Out Front,” in the 2013 council election.

Johnson’s concern in 2013 led to 252 ballots being disqualified by the Monmouth County Board of Elections, and Superior Court Judge Dennis O’Brien upheld the Board’s decision. In his ruling Judge O’Brien said, “To get a ballot, you have to follow a procedure. That didn’t happen here.”

The Asbury Together team first raised this issue to Monmouth County Clerk Claire French in a personal meeting on Wednesday October 15, 2014 after the Tri-City News reported the issue on October 9, 2014. The Asbury Together team followed up the meeting with numerous calls to the County Clerk’s office and a letter dated October 20, 2014 outlining their concerns.

“We raised our concerns early hoping the clerk’s office would examine the vote-by-mail applications and, if proper procedure was not followed, create a contingency plan to ensure all Asbury Park voters can cast a vote in the November 4^th election. We are still hopeful the County Clerk’s office and Board of Elections can make a speedy determination so that every voter has the opportunity to vote in the upcoming election,” the Asbury Together candidates said in a statement they released today.

It is very difficult for the County Clerk’s office to determine a pattern as they receive applications piecemeal; only when hundreds are viewed together, at the same time, does a pattern emerge. Once that a pattern is clear, we believe that it must be addressed.

Below are highlights from Superior Court Judge Dennis O’Brien’s ruling on September 27, 2013 that pertain specifically to the current challenge of “authorized messenger” ballots. In addition, a full PDF transcript of that proceeding is attached along with this release.

Highlights:

– Page 11, THE COURT: And there were a number of application and ballots that were indicative to them that there was more than one assistor, with no signature of an assistor. And my ruling was in essence that the Board exercised proper discretion in not counting those ballots because the voter did not follow the law in noting that there was an assistor. And therefore, the — since they had not followed the law with respect to the application, they don’t get to a ballot.

– Page 11, THE COURT: If you don’t fill the application out correctly, you don’t get a ballot.

– Page 12, THE COURT: So, therefore, the Board acted properly because it was clear to them that the process was flawed, the voters lost their right to cast the ballot.

– Page 12, THE COURT: my point was you don’t get to ballot if you don’t do application correctly.

– Page 25, THE COURT: But there’s no question that at least on a serious number of these ballots, there was a concerted effort by somebody, one of the campaigns, one of the candidates, to get vote-by-mail ballots out to people in various portions of the town. And the problem is that, that has the potential for fraud, when the law is not followed. And the law is very simple. Whoever that person that filled out however many of them there were, went into or went to, whatever it was whether it was a housing, an apartment complex, a nursing home, you know, any type of place where there was  large number of voters, somebody sat down with those application and wrote Daniel Avis, Apartment 1, George Cohen, Apartment 2, filled them all out. Okay? And then somebody went to door to door and said, “You want us to bring you a ballot, get you a ballot?” Sure, sign. All they had to do , all they had to do was go back to whoever’s handwriting was on that thing and sign it as an assistor. We would not be having this discussion.

– Page 31, THE COURT: Whoever coordinated the program, on behalf of a candidate or a campaign, screwed up, big time. Because they didn’t follow a simple instruction, the law. What they did was they disenfranchised these people. Not the board. Not the County Clerk. The campaign, whoever that was, that went out with this program, they’re the ones who disenfranchised their own citizens. Because they couldn’t follow a simple application.

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