Republicans Seek to Limit Voter Choice

Republicans Seek to Limit Voter Choice

On June 8 of this year the New Jersey Republican State Committee, represented by Jason Sena esq, submitted a challenge to my nominating petition for New Jersey House of Representative District 7 on the basis that 670 endorsements in my petition were circulated by out of state residents. 303 endorsements were also challenged for various reasons, including the signatory not being a registered voter, the signatory residing outside the district, and incomplete signature. I had submitted 775 signatures to the Division of Elections on the 1st of June. In New Jersey the signature threshold for direct nomination for House of Representative is 250 endorsements.

In Mr. Sena’s petition objection, he references NJ statute 19:13-7 which outlines the requirements for petition circulators which include eligibility to vote in New Jersey and Empower Our Neighborhoods vs Guadagno which eliminated district residency requirements but upheld the state residency requirement for petition circulators.

The hearing held on June 9 I along with my attorney, Joseph Fortunato esq, argued in Arsenault vs Way the court ordered that New Jersey residency requirement be declared unconstitutional and ordered the Division of Elections provide a more narrowly tailored procedure to comport with this ruling. Fortunato further argued “Arsenault analyzed the political speech of the petition circulators themselves and has ruled that is political speech, the most protected kind of speech. The speech which deserves the strictest of scrutiny, because it involves a core constitutional right.” Mr. Sena responded that Arsenault vs Wade was addressing residency requirements of circulators for primary elections not direct nominations and that the distinction was critical. Administrative Law Judge William Courtney asked both sides to submit briefs by noon on June 10, after which he would send his determination.

In his brief, Mr. Sena, denied that Arsenault vs Wade addressed the constitutionality of the statute. He argues that it was analyzing the language, “The person who circulates the petition shall be a registered voter in this State whose party affiliation is of the same political party named in the petition” which has key differences to the language found in N.J.S.A 19:13-7, “shall not be required to be a registered voter, but shall be voter eligible, which means at least 18 years of age, a resident of this State, a citizen of the United States, and not otherwise disqualified under the New Jersey Constitution.” Additionally, he wrote that the Respondent failed to notify the proper court of challenging the constitutionality of NJ statute 19:13-7, referencing Staubus v. Whitman, “No administrative agency has jurisdiction to declare a statute unconstitutional.” Claiming that Respondent cannot raise a facial constitutional challenge in an administrative proceeding such as this in the first place nor does the Secretary of State who will ultimately review the Administrative Court’s decision and recommendation.

In contrast, Mr. Fortunato cited multiple U.S Supreme court rulings regarding the petition process such as Meyer v. Grant, (1988), "Although the petition circulation process does not involve the formal expression of a political view, it does involve both the expression of a desire for political change and a discussion of the merits of the proposed change,” Buckley v. American Constitutional Law Foundation (1999), “Petition circulation, we agree, is ‘core political speech,’ for which First Amendment protection is ‘at its zenith,” Williams v. Rhodes (1968), “The right to form a party for the advancement of political goals means little if a party can be kept off the election ballot and thus denied an equal opportunity to win votes.” He further argued Objectors seek the extraordinary remedy of removing a congressional candidate from the ballot despite the absence of any allegation that petition signers were unqualified, fraudulent, misleading or that the circulators engaged in improper conduct.

ALJ Courtney ordered on June 10 that my petition be declared invalid and be excluded from the 2026 ballot. His rationale being, “While Leguía raises significant and compelling constitutional arguments in defense of her nominating petition, her challenge to the constitutionality of N.J.S.A. 19:13-7 is purely a question of law which should be addressed by the Appellate Division. Without clear guidance from the Appellate Division or the Supreme Court of New Jersey, I must conclude that the OAL is not the proper forum for the consideration of this issue.” His ruling being an interpretation of the law as it’s written and not the validity of the law itself. Upon receiving this ruling my team began preparing to appeal the decision and contact the Attorney General.

Earlier this year, Secretary of State of New Jersey Dale Caldwell edited ALJ Michael Stanzione’s ruling of invalidating 83 signatures collected by Princeton University students registered to vote outside of New Jersey for Democratic CD12 candidate Sue Altman’s petition stating, “The Constitutional invalidity of N.J.S.A. 19:13-7 with respect to the residency requirement of petition circulators is equally applicable to presidential primary candidates and congressional primary candidates,” Caldwell wrote. “Thus, pursuant to Arsenault elections case, out-of-state individuals must be permitted to act as petition circulators so as to not unconstitutionally violate associational rights of political parties.”

If you have ever run for office or been involved in the petitioning process in New Jersey you know the employees at the Division of Elections don’t bat an eye when they receive a petition where the circulator is an out of state resident. They will ask for their driver’s license and submit it along with the rest of the nominating paperwork. The question then becomes why has this law been allowed to remain? Why is there a statute on the books that judges are compelled to enforce despite it being ruled unconstitutional over and over again? A statute that results in frequent modification, reversals and rejection by the Secretary of State? Having out of state circulators, paid or volunteer, is common practice in New Jersey and throughout the country by Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, Greens and Independents alike. There is an entire industry built around this one task of achieving ballot access. The Republican State Committee has not challenged candidates in previous years who have had out of state circulators, including the New Jersey Libertarian Party candidates as recently as 2025 and 2024, why now? They see me as a threat. Tom Kean Jr. has been missing from congress since March 5, 2026. District 7 has not had a representative in congress for over 100 days. Not only has he not shown up to roll call but he has not even directly spoken for himself answering to his constituents. His team has collected his signatures, manned his booths, posted on social media and they have even tried to submit statements into the congressional record on his behalf. The only way the Republicans can secure their seat is by exploiting technicalities in the law to eliminate competition.

On June 11, SoS Dale Caldwell ordered ALJ William Courtney’s initial decision regarding my nominating petition be modified to accept the petition booklets circulated by non residents as valid. In his determination he writes, “The court in Arsenault definitively held that a residency requirement for Primary Election petition circulators is unnecessarily restrictive and does not survive strict scrutiny. For General Election petitions, when political party affiliation is irrelevant, petition requirements are even less restrictive. As such, candidates seeking petition signatures to appear on the General Election ballot should not be burdened with greater restrictions than Primary Election candidates. Consistent with the Arsenault decision, out-of-state individuals must be permitted to act as petition circulators so as to not unconstitutionally violate their free speech by prohibiting the right of voters to choose from eligible candidates being placed on the General Election ballot.”

Victory, or so it appeared. That Monday, on June 15, Mr. Fortunato received a letter informing us the State Republican Committee will be appealing the decision of the Secretary of State. Libertarians across the US are being challenged for insignificant objections such as forenames being shortened, missing information on paperwork or in my case, the person holding the clipboard not being a resident. The NJ Republican State committee cares not of how this disenfranchises the hundreds of registered District 7 voters who endorsed my petition.

The purpose behind nominating petitions was to give voters the opportunity to have a say in who was going to be on their ballot instead of community leaders or party officials deciding for them. It was meant to be an expression of the democratic process. It is now a mere procedural barrier abused by the two parties to maintain power and preserve the illusion of choice in elections.

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