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A legal effort to trigger a mayoral run-off in Asbury Park appears to face long odds, as Mayor John Moor [right] says he’s one ballot away from winning the court case.

In the November election, Moor defeated A-Team candidate Remond Palmer [above left] in a multi-candidate field by over 50 percent of the vote, avoiding the need for a run-off election between Moor and Palmer, the two top vote-getters.

Palmer and Michele Council [above right], an unsuccessful A-Team board of education candidate, filed suit in December seeking to count 343 vote by mail [VBM] ballots that the Monmouth County Board of Elections disqualified. Palmer and Council in their lawsuit claimed those voters were supporters and the ballots were gathered as part of the A-Team’s efforts to boost voter turnout.

In legal proceedings last week, the number of unopened ballots in dispute has been reduced to 230, and testimony will start on March 9 on whether those ballots should be opened and counted, said Moor, who is representing himself in the lawsuit.

According to Moor’s count, Monmouth County Superior Court Judge Dennis O’Brien would have to allow all 230 ballots to be counted — and every vote would have to go against Moor — to force a run-off election.  If one ballot is disqualified, or if one ballot is cast for Moor, then Palmer would be mathematically unable to force a run-off, Moor said.

At this stage in the legal proceedings, the total number of people who voted in the mayor’s race is 2571, with Moor getting 1401 votes and Palmer 729, Moor said. The balance of the vote went to the two other candidates for mayor.

Aaron Mizrahi, the attorney representing Palmer and Council, said in an email that he cannot remark on Moor’s numbers “since we are still in the process of determining what the tallies are at this point.”

The trial will go forward, Mizrahi said, because “hundreds of voters in certain sections of Asbury Park” were disenfranchised by their VBM ballots being rejected, and those voters should be given their “‘day in court’ to defend their constitution rights.”

“An in-depth analysis of vote-by-mail applications, corresponding ballots [accepted or rejected] and voter registration records, reveals perceived irregularities in the standards and procedures used to canvass mail-in ballots, which we believe has effectively disenfranchised hundreds of voters in certain sections of Asbury Park,” Mizrahi said. “During the next phase of this election challenge, which is scheduled to begin in 2 weeks, we look forward to individual voters being given their ‘day in court’ to defend their constitutional rights.”

But Moor, in a Facebook post, said the A-Team campaign disenfranchised the voters by not following ballot procedures, leading to ballots being disqualified. He cited as an example approximately 83 disqualified ballots where the signatures on the returned VBM ballots did not match the signatures on the voter rolls. Moor said the A-Team attorneys last week withdrew their request to count those ballots.

“So this expensive court case continues,” said Moor in his Facebook post. “I am confident I will prevail, yet I have to return every day until this issue is resolved.”

The majority of the unopened ballots in dispute are so-called “messenger ballots” where the A-Team campaign offered to arrange for a messenger to personally deliver a ballot to voters, said Moor. The Board of Elections threw out most of those ballots on the grounds that not everyone who assisted a voter in filling out the VBM ballot application was disclosed on the application.

Palmer and Council in their lawsuit said all procedures were properly followed.

The odds of board of education candidate Council appear somewhat better. While Moor has been focusing on his own legal defense, his count has Council needing approximately 190 of the 230 ballots in dispute to be declared the winner over Carol Jones, who was sworn into the seat in January. O’Brien had rejected a request by Palmer and Council not to seat Moor and Jones until their legal challenge was decided.

Moor ran for mayor on the Asbury Together ticket. His four council running mates — Amy Quinn, Jesse Kendle, Joe Woerner and Yvonne Clayton — won by a wide enough margin to avoid a run-off, even if all the disputed ballots in the A-Team lawsuit were counted.

The Monmouth County Board of Elections is represented by Deputy Attorney General George Cohen.

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