An appellate court judge today affirmed last week’s ruling to allow the Roselle Democratic County Committee to pick a general election candidate after Superior Court Judge John Deitch voided the results of a June primary for a borough council seat.
Vote-by-mail ballots are due to be mailed on Saturday, but Appellate Judges Jack Sabatino and Stanley Bergman ordered a stay until 3 PM today, allowing incumbent Denise Wilkerson to file an appeal with the New Jersey Supreme Court. If she does that, the stay will remain in effect.
Wilkerson defeated challenger Cynthia Johnson by two votes out of almost 3,000 cast. However, after a three-month legal battle, Deitch found that at least three voters were inadvertently disenfranchised and had their certification of the election results nullified.
Deitch had initially ordered a do-over primary, but after realizing that he couldn’t, he told the local Democratic Party to do so. In a vote on Sunday night, the party selected Johnson, 20-7.
In his decision, Sabatino rejected Deitch’s first ruling: that a special primary be held in December, followed by a special election in January.
“She advocates that this novel remedy should be equitably adopted here, in the spirit of maximizing ‘the true will of the electorate,’” Sabatino wrote. “We respectfully decline the invitation. Our role as an intermediate appellate court is a limited one, and we must be guided by the precedents and authoritative leadership role of the Supreme Court.”
Sabatino determined that “unless and until the Supreme Court endorses such a remedy—which may have wider implications for other future election cases in this state—we agree with the trial court’s ultimate decision to not adopt it.
“In doing so, we express no policy pronouncements about whether this special-election solution is preferable to or more democratic than the party committee procedures for filling vacancies set forth by the legislature,” he wrote. “The Supreme Court may have the opportunity on further review, if appellant pursues it, to ponder the propriety of such an alternative.”
