Court finds candidates were illegally grouped together; new public drawing ordered as hotly contested school-board race takes another dramatic turn
The controversial ballot drawing for the Toms River Regional Board of Education election has officially been thrown out, FAA News reports.
In a major victory for the opposition school-board candidates Elizabeth Huber and Laura Picurro, Ocean County Superior Court Presiding Judge Robert E. Brenner concluded following an emergent hearing on Wednesday that the Ocean County Clerk's Office improperly conducted the August 10 drawing that determined where candidates would appear on November's ballot.
And the Judge didn't merely tell election officials to do things differently next time.
He vacated the drawing and ordered them to do it all over again — immediately.
In a written Order entered Thursday, Brenner formally “VACATED and SET ASIDE” the August 10 drawing and declared that the Clerk's Office improperly grouped Huber and Picurro together with candidate Anthony Colucci despite the absence of the timely written bracketing request required by New Jersey election law. The Court ordered a completely new drawing to take place no later than 10:00 a.m. September 10.
That is precisely the central irregularity Huber and Picurro identified when they rushed into Superior Court less than two weeks ago.
As first reported on FAA News, Huber and Picurro alleged that Deputy Ocean County Clerk John Catalano improperly combined them and Colucci into a single entry during the August 10 drawing.
The candidates maintained that they had never submitted the written request required by N.J.S.A. 19:60-8(d) to be bracketed together.
That mattered because treating three candidates as one entry changed the mathematics of the supposedly random drawing. According to their lawsuit, assuming the opposing grouping was valid, the improper combination reduced what should have been five entries to three — increasing the opposing group's chance of obtaining first position from 20 percent to approximately 33 percent.
That opposing group included incumbent Board President Ashley Lamb — who is also a Deputy Ocean County Clerk.
Lamb's group ultimately drew first.
Those allegations were initially just that: allegations.
They aren't anymore — at least as to the improper Huber-Picurro-Colucci grouping.
Judge Brenner has now expressly declared that grouping “contrary to N.J.S.A. 19:60-8(d)” and prohibited officials from repeating it during the new drawing.
There was another significant development concerning the unusual overlap between Lamb's candidacy and her employment with the office administering the election.
The plaintiffs had asked Brenner to send the new drawing to an entirely different county, arguing that an outside County Clerk should conduct it because Lamb works as a Deputy Ocean County Clerk.
Brenner did not go that far.
Instead, the drawing remains with the Ocean County Clerk's Office — but the Order specifically records that Lamb agreed not to participate in the new drawing.
Brenner further directed County Clerk Jack Kelly to recognize a candidate group only where the candidates submitted a timely, valid written bracketing request and informed the Clerk's Office of the order of their names. Everyone else must receive an individual entry.
The plaintiffs also complained that clear capsules were used during the original drawing, arguing that this violated the statutory requirement that capsules be drawn “without knowledge” of which candidate was being selected.
Brenner did not specifically order the County to use opaque capsules.
He did, however, direct Kelly or his designee to conduct the new drawing in strict compliance with N.J.S.A. 19:14-12 and N.J.S.A. 19:60-8.
And this time there will be witnesses.
The Judge ordered the new drawing opened to the public and required that all candidates receive notice.
Immediately afterward, the Clerk must publicly announce the results and prepare a written certification identifying both the order drawn and every bracket recognized in the drawing. That certification must then be transmitted to counsel and other interested parties.
In other words, the redo won't simply produce a new order. It will create a written record of exactly which candidates the Clerk treated as groups.
Brenner's Order goes even further.
The Clerk's Office may approve, program, print, mail and distribute Toms River school-board ballots only according to the results of the new drawing.
And if any ballot proof, election programming, printed ballot or even a distributed ballot already reflects the now-vacated August 10 order, the Clerk's Office must take the steps necessary to correct it.
The Court also ordered officials to preserve the evidence from both drawings — including slips, capsules, boxes, recordings, photographs, bracketing requests, communications, ballot proofs, programming files, printer instructions and metadata.
The speed of the case is remarkable.
Huber and Picurro filed their lawsuit on August 28.
Judge Brenner initially froze implementation of the disputed ballot order.
Less than two weeks later, following Wednesday's emergent hearing, the Judge reached the merits of the bracketing dispute and threw the original drawing out altogether.
The new drawing was ordered held by 10:00 Thursday morning — barely enough time for the ink on the Court's Order to dry.
For the seven candidates fighting over three seats on the Toms River Regional Board of Education, the campaign now has an unusual distinction:
Before voters could decide who wins the election, a Superior Court Judge first had to throw out the drawing that decided where their names would appear on the ballot.
And now, they're drawing again.
FAA News will continue following the Toms River school-board election — including the results of the court-ordered redraw.
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