Tuesday, August 21, 2012

New Jersey: Greetings from Asbury Park! -- Your petitions are hereby rejected

Petitions to recall Mayor Ed Johnson and two council members, John Loffredo and Susan Henderson was rejected by the county clerk. The clerk claimed that it was too late to meet the deadline (September 13) to get on the ballot for November.

Interesting logic here, one that may could easily be tossed out by a judge. Petitioners handed in 2,644 signatures for each. Petitioners needed 1,865 valids (25% of registereds).

The clerk rejected the petitions because he has 10 business days to determine validity, and 10 more business days to allow for objections. If there are no objections, he needs to wait five days for resignations to get it on the ballot. So, based on this timeframe, he would only have to days to get due the verification.

According to the article, the group also collected signatures against two other council members, James Bruno and Kevin Sanders, but failed to get enough to qualify.

 Unsurprisingly, given the argument, petitioners will contest this in court: I'm not sure if the city does not allow special election recalls, but I don't know why that wouldn't just be the result.

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