A Hunterdon County man will get to vote in the 2025 general election despite a Motor Vehicles Commission snafu that left him inexplicably unregistered to vote.
Superior Court Judge John Bruder found that “clearly there was a clerical error.”
The voter testified that he moved to New Jersey in November 2024 and that he had gone to the motor vehicles office after that.
“I intended to check yes. I want to register,” he said. “I did think I did and was shocked to find out I had no record.”
“He probably thought he was checking off yes, and for some reason, he was registered as a no,” Bruder said. “There was an error somewhere along the way, and this was not the intention of the voter.”
A woman in Union County was also approved to vote by machine on Wednesday after telling Superior Court Judge John Ciarocca that she had moved from Essex to Union in May.
In the primary, the woman was instructed to go back to Essex and cast a provisional ballot; provisional ballots, when accepted, serve as voter registration forms, so by voting in Essex in June, she was registered there again.
Judge Mark Ciarocca ordered election officials to immediately register the woman and allow her to vote on a machine in Union County.
But a woman who moved from Passaic County to Monmouth in May will not be permitted to vote since she did not change her registration address before the October 14 deadline. The woman sold her home and is staying in an extended-stay hotel until she can buy a new home in Monmouth.
“The statute is clear, and my job is to enforce the statute as it’s written. Call balls and strikes, because the legislature and the governor – the elected branches – they make their desires clear through the words they choose,” said Superior Court Judge Gregory Acquaviva.
Acquaviva, who briefly served as chief counsel to Gov. Chris Christie in 2017, is the first judge in the state to disenfranchise a voter since the early voting period began on Saturday.
Christie nominated him to the bench after just a few months as chief counsel; he gave up his government relations job at UnitedHealth Group to take the post and had previously served as one of many chief of staffs to Lt. Governor Kim Guadagno.
He became a tenured judge in 2024, but earlier this year, Acquaviva applied to become a federal magistrate judge. He was not among the finalists; instead, the post went to Cari Fais, who had served as Gov. Phil Murphy’s acting consumer affairs director. It’s unusual for a tenured state judge to seek a magistrate post.
Christie had vetoed a bill that would have permitted automatic voter registration at motor vehicle offices.
The New Jersey Globe withholds the names of voters who appear before judges to protect their privacy.
Voters who feel they are being wrongfully disenfranchised have the right to make their case to a judge. This can be done remotely and arranged through the county Board of Elections.
