Asbury Park election lawsuit will go to trial
A-Team lawyers seek to call at least 230 voters as witnesses
A Monmouth County Superior Court Judge will hear testimony in late February from over 230 Asbury Park voters whose ballots were rejected in the November municipal election.
During a hearing Wednesday, Judge Dennis O’Brien granted the request Wednesday to lawyers representing A-Team candidates Remond Palmer and Arva M. Council. Palmer and Council [shown above] filed a suit in December to seek the counting of 343 ballots disqualified by the Monmouth County Board of Elections.
Their council seeks testimony from voters whose vote-by-mail [VBM] ballots were rejected based on their individual VMB ballot applications.
Members of the opposing Asbury Together ticket submitted over 300 challenges to VBM ballot applications in the election, calling into question whether A-Team candidates and campaign volunteers properly handled messenger ballot applications.
The outcome of the case could change the results of the Asbury Park mayor’s race and force a runoff between sitting Mayor John Moor and Palmer, who were the top votegetters. It also has the potential to unseat Asbury Park Board of Education member Carol Jones and replace her with Council, who did not win a seat.
Moor, who represented himself, was disappointed the matter was not resolved today as he was hopeful new council could move forward without the issue hanging over their heads, he said, but he still has faith in the legal system.
He said he was also glad it came to light that although the suit claimed member of his winning Asbury Together ticket — which swept all five seats in the election — only challenged VBM applications from residents in three of the city’s nine voting districts, O’Brien recognized challenges were submitted to contest VBM applications in all districts.
“As much as myself and others filed challenges to requests for absentees, that is all we did, we did not have a say in which were counted or disqualified, that was a decision made by the County Board of Elections and the County Clerk’s office,” he said. “A lot of people think we had these ballots thrown out. We didn’t.”
Palmer deferred comment to his attorney, Aaron Mizrahi. Mizrahi could not immediately be reached for comment.
The trial is set for the week of Feb. 23.
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