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An appeal is planned to the dismissal of a lawsuit to count rejected vote-by-mail ballots in last year’s Asbury Park election, according to a news release issued through the law firm representing A-Team mayoral candidate Remond Palmer and board of education candidate Arva “Michelle” Council [above], who together filed the action.

“We’re optimistic that meaningful relief for hundreds of disenfranchised voters is on the horizon, and we’ve directed our attorneys to prepare this case for submission to the Appellate Division,” Palmer said.

If the ballots in dispute were opened, there were potentially enough votes to force a run-off between Mayor John Moor, who was declared the official winner, and Palmer, as well as give Council enough votes to take a seat on the Board of Education. Mommouth County Judge Dennis O’Brien dismissed the case last week, after Palmer and Council could produce one voter among the 77 the judge asked to appear to testify.

However, the news release repeated the assertion last week of attorney Aaron Mizrahi, who represented the two A-Team candidates, that the presence in the courtroom of detectives from the county prosecutor’s office throughout the proceedings was “a significant deterrent to voter testimony.”

Charles Webster, a spokesman for the county prosecutor’s office, told the Sun last week that the court rooms are open to the public, and that law enforcement officials are found throughout the court house. “This is an important case and in the matter of an investigation a detective will sit inside a courtroom,” he said.

But the release from the A-Team candidates stated that “the detectives’ motives became even more suspect after sources confirmed that the Prosecutor’s Office had no record of any active investigation relating to the 2014 Asbury Park election.”

Webster was not able to be immediately reached Wednesday night for comment on the statement.

In a Facebook post responding to the A-Team news release, Moor charged that the A-Team itself was responsible for the disenfranchisement of voters by not following election law requirements.

The VBM ballots in dispute were part of the A-Team’s voter turnout effort, and the applications for the ballots, and messengers to deliver them to the voters, were obtained with the assistance of their campaign, according to the lawsuit filed by Palmer and Council.

Moor said the attorney for Palmer and Council withdrew their request to open about a quarter of the ballots in dispute before testimony in the case began. The Monmouth County Board of Elections had ruled that the voter signatures on these 83 VBM ballots did not match the voter signatures in county voter records, according to Moor, who represented himself in the lawsuit.

“83 voters who they say were their supporters were disenfranchised by them and their attorneys. Not me, not the county, not the AG, not the judge,” said Moor in the Facebook post.

Moor told the Sun last week that after the two A-Team candidates could not produce more than one voter as a witness, he requested the dismissal of the case, which the judge granted.

Palmer and Council also said that in addition to the appeal they are exploring whether to file voter suppression and civil rights charges against the city council, county election officials and the county prosecutor’s office. Their release alleged that the basis for ballot challenges by the Asbury Together ticket — who won all five council seats, which includes the mayor’s post — were an illegal pretext to challenge voters based on where they lived and their presumed candidate preference.

The two A-Team candidates also said that voters’ due process rights were denied by not being given notice of the challenge to their ballots so they could appear in front of the Board of Elections to make their case to vote.

“This categorical disenfranchisement of hundreds of residents, for a community already careworn by consistent marginalization in City government, evoked attitudes strongly reminiscent of the Jim Crow south,” the release stated.

The following is the full text of the news release issued by Palmer and Council:

PALMER AND COUNCIL CONTINUING FIGHT TO VINDICATE RIGHTS OF DISENFRANCHISED ASBURY PARK VOTERS; A-Team Campaign Also Exploring Civil Rights, Voter Suppression Charges Against City Council Members, County Election Officials & County Prosecutor’s Office

Citing ambiguities in New Jersey’s election laws, the Superior Court of New Jersey in Monmouth County, issued a final ruling on March 12, 2015 in an election contest filed by 2014 Asbury Park mayoral candidate Remond Palmer and Asbury Park Board of Education candidate Arva “Michelle” Council. The trial court’s decision to uphold the Monmouth County Board of Elections’ rejection of hundreds of legal votes marked the end of almost 3 weeks of testimony and legal argument. A mere setback in their efforts to safeguard voter rights and ensure equal representation in government, Palmer and Council remain confident in the merits of their case, especially in light of the statutory gaps highlighted by the trial judge. As Palmer stated: “Our struggle is far from over. Election laws are intended to encourage public participation, but the Board of Elections’ slanted interpretations of those laws irresponsibly continue to restrict access and stifle the voters’ true will. No one should be burdened year-after-year with having to defend his/her constitutional right to vote. We’re optimistic that meaningful relief for hundreds of disenfranchised voters is on the horizon, and we’ve directed our attorneys to prepare this case for submission to the Appellate Division.”

Palmer and Council’s petition is largely based upon a chain of events beginning late in the day on October 31, 2014, essentially the day before the 2014 election. Despite their own admissions that the better part of a month was spent scrutinizing mail-in ballot applications from A-Team supporters, the Asbury Together campaign, led by now Mayor John Moor and Councilmembers Amy Quinn, Jesse Kendle, Joseph Woerner and Barbara Clayton, launched a sweeping, eleventh-hour offensive to prevent hundreds of constituents from voting. Asbury Together candidates went before the Board of Elections with unsubstantiated allegations of dishonest practices by voters in requesting mail-in ballots, specifically targeting the predominantly African American residents of Asbury Park’s west side. Yet, instead of weighing Asbury Together’s half-baked indictments against the candidates’ likely bias, the Board accepted them wholesale and summarily discarded 355 ballots without any concern for due process. In fact, while the Asbury Together candidates perhaps ignored their legal obligations to serve voters with challenge affidavits, the Board of Elections adamantly refused to do so; and until receiving a generic letter from the Board 2 weeks after the election, most voters were completely unaware of any uncertainties regarding their eligibility to vote, let alone that their ballots were not counted.

But the true magnitude of this suppression scheme became apparent only after the discovery process revealed patterns suggesting that Asbury Together’s stated reasons for disputing mail-in ballot applications were merely pretext. Rather, voters were seemingly being condemned based on where they lived and their presumed candidate preference–both illegal grounds for a voter challenge. The Board of Elections rebuffed pre-petition pleas for relief, though; and instead, through reckless abandon, it too became a willing participant in Asbury Together’s suppression efforts. Together, they successfully thwarted voters’ true will by preventing a runoff for Mayor between Palmer and Moor and preventing Council from being elected at all. This categorical disenfranchisement of hundreds of residents, for a community already careworn by consistent marginalization in City government, evoked attitudes strongly reminiscent of the Jim Crow south.

With its exclusive, unlimited access to voter records and polling data, the Board of Elections is uniquely positioned to detect voter suppression schemes as they occur and has a duty to shield voters from such discriminatory tactics. But with the Asbury Park election, commissioners betrayed their own charge and not only turned a blind eye to the Asbury Together scheme, but also audaciously bolstered suppression efforts by evaluating mail-in ballots from different areas of the City under different standards. Indeed, when viewed alongside other accepted ballots (unchallenged by Moor’s camp), the double standard became obvious; but Palmer and Council were precluded from introducing evidence of these irregularities during the trial, and so the Board’s questionable conduct was never fully set forth on the record.

Further complicating the court proceedings was the staged presence of 2 detectives from the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office–a significant deterrent to voter testimony. Unwilling to explain their presence, the detectives’ motives became even more suspect after sources confirmed that the Prosecutor’s Office had no record of any active investigation relating to the 2014 Asbury Park election. Ever since the federal Voting Rights Act was enacted in 1965, deploying sheriffs’ deputies and uniformed law enforcement to voter registration sites and polling places (a recognized voter harassment tactic) has been expressly prohibited. In complete contravention to the law, though, the Prosecutor’s Office effectively added a new place to install restrictive law enforcement: the courthouse, where those who appear to defend their voting rights can be easily discouraged. In spite of Palmer and Council’s requests to avoid witness intimidation by closing the courtroom to unnecessary law enforcement during testimony, the trial judge refused, alluding to the detectives’ own First Amendment rights. In the end, the trial court’s rulings on this and other basic legal issues, erroneous as they may be, tacitly endorsed the county officials’ illicit behavior, and effectively legalized oppressive maneuvers such as those used by Moor and his Asbury Together slate.

Grateful for the community support they have received thus far, Palmer and Council urge their constituents to stand with them during the critical appeals process, and call upon others to join them in their mission. “This is not just an Asbury Park issue, or just a New Jersey issue,” Palmer said, “it’s a nationwide issue. Voting–the basis of our democracy–is not a privilege, it’s a fundamental right. And as we mark the 50th anniversary of civil rights laws that strengthened this entitlement for all citizens, it’s time for us to stand up to discriminatory electioneering and send a definitive message that, as a people, as a society, we cannot and will not allow it.”

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