By Walter Elliott
NEWARK – There will likely be some registered Essex County voters who will open their sample and/or Vote By Mail Ballots for the Nov. 7 General Election and ask:
“Is that the right party on Line A?”
And on both major parties’ newly redrawn 27 New Jersey Legislature ballot lines:
“Who are these people – I didn’t vote for them in the (June 6) primary?”
The Essex Republican Party Organization’s candidates, for the first time in 19 years, will be on Line A. The Essex County Democratic Committee’s candidates will be on Line B.
Essex County Clerk Chris Durkin publicly pulled the ERPO’s capsule in a bingo-style drawing here Aug. 14 – a traditional procedure that almost did not happen. Montclair Republican Committee Chairman Michael D. Byrne and his attorney, Giancarlo Ghione asked N.J. Superior Court Judge Robert H. Gardner that Monday morning to postpone the drawing.
Byrne and Ghione asked Gardner for an injunction to postpone the drawing until the League of Women Voters or a similar nonpartisan group gets to monitor the drawing. The plaintiffs said that ECDC candidates’ receiving Line A for 17 straight years is a “statistical impossibility.”
Gardner denied Byrne’s injunction. Durkin (D-South Orange), who has been elected as County Clerk since 2006, insisted in an Aug. 18 statement that “each ballot drawing is conducted in a fair and open process where the public is invited to attend.”
Perhaps the bigger concern is regarding the respective ECDC and ERPO lineups for LD27 for State Senate and General Assembly.
Those new Nov. 7 lineups are to be before voters in West Orange and Montclair, “West Essex” Livingston, Millburn and Roseland and Passaic County’s Clifton – who had made their party choices on June 6.
A majority of participating Democratic party faithful had chosen Richard J. “Dick” Codey, of Roseland, for State Senate plus John McKeon, of West Orange and Alixon Collazos-Gill, of Montclair, for General Assembly in the June 6 primary elections.
A majority of participating Republican party faithful had written-in Michael D. Byrne, of West Orange, for State Senate plus Jonathan Sym, of Millburn and Irene De Vita, of Clifton, for General Assembly. Neither the Essex nor Passaic Republican Party Organizations had submitted petitions to place candidates on the LD27 primary ballot.
The Democratic district ballot, since their Aug.24 committee meeting, has McKeon now running for State Senate. Livingston Councilwoman Dr. Rossura Bagolie joins Collazos-Gill on the Assembly slate.
Republicans’ district ballot, as of Aug. 28, is Byrne, De Vita – and “To Be Announced.”
The Democratic dilemma began when Orange native and former Governor Codey announced his Jan. 4, 2024 retirement on Aug. 14. A majority of party voters had selected the 50-year legislator over fellow incumbent Sen. Nia Gill, of Montclair, in a redistricting-caused head-to-head primary.
LeRoy Jones – the chairman of the East Orange, Essex County and State Democratic Committees – was faced with a ticket change. His first move was to convene an LD27 county committee meeting for Aug. 24.
“Let me dispel the notion that the process was ‘backroom politics,'” said Jones in a televised Aug. 25 interview. “The vacancy filling process was followed to the letter of state statute by us. As far as why Sen. Codey is retiring, that’s between the Senator and his family.”
It was first thought that Essex County and Clifton’s 356 delegates would have been choosing either McKeon or Collazos-Gill’s husband – Brendan Gill. B. Gill is the Montclair Democratic Committee Chairman who, then and now, is running for Essex County Commissioner re-election.
Collazos-Gill, on Aug. 17, then withdrew her Assembly candidacy in favor of husband Brendan Gill. Bagolie meanwhile expressed interest in running for an Assembly seat.
Jones then became concerned that having three prospective candidates from West Orange and/or Montclair would alienate the district’s three West Essex towns. He did get the blessing from Clifton Democratic Chairman John Currie, on Aug. 22, to whatever is legally right before Currie went on a scheduled vacation.
Before the 356 delegates would start on Aug. 24, Collazos-Gill announced that she will stay in the Assembly race. Husband B. Gill, she added, withdrew to concentrate on his county commissioner campaign.
“As to what was going on,” said Jones of the Brendan and Collazos-Gill changes, “that’s between Mr. and Mrs. Gill.”
McKeon, at the delegates meeting, was given the senate assignment by acclamation. The same delegates selected Bagolie over former Assemblyman Craig Stanley, 107-59, or a 64/36 percentage split.
Stanley, who represented East Orange while a former 34th LD Assemblyman, had moved to Montclair for an unsuccessful June 6 27th LD assembly primary run. He – like B. Gill, Collazos-Gill and Bagolie – were looking to fill a vacancy, not taking an electoral “second bite.”
Nia Gill could have also sought to rejoin the LD27 slate as a vacancy seeker. Neither N. Gill or Stanley could have filed petitions to run as independent General Election candidates under the state’s “Sore Loser Law.” That law sets the filing deadline of petitions for November minor party or independent candidates for 4 p.m. of the major party primary elections.
Essex County and Clifton Republicans are to meanwhile choose Aug. 29 past press time between Michaell Mecca, Jr. and Malvin Frias – both of Clifton – to succeed Sym.
Sym, who is a Naval Reserve commander, announced Monday that he and his family are moving to Virginia to be closer to his one-year deployment. Mecca and Frias have expressed interest.
Sym had attained his assembly space by receiving 212 districtwide Republican write-in votes June 6. De Vita drew the other slot with 194 votes Byrne got the senate spot with 192 votes.
6 p.m. Aug. 31 is the hard deadline for county clerks to receive candidate ballot changes either by voluntary withdrawal or by party directions. The Nov. 7 ballot will then be frozen; candidates who have later resigned, have withdrawn from campaigning or have died cannot get their names removed.
The Aug. 29 candidate change and Aug. 31 ballot freezing actually came two weeks earlier than in previous years. Gov. Phil Murphy (D-Rumson) signed a state law in July that moved up those deadlines.
Durkin, his Passaic County colleague Danielle Ireland-Imhof and their election division workers would rather have ballot name changes made on or before Aug. 18. – which still stands for the November Board of Education candidates.
Ruben Rodriguez, for example, withdrew his petitions for Belleville Board of Education Trustee on Aug. 18 before his Aug. 24 announcement.
