Three congressional candidates in New Jersey are facing challenges to their nominating petitions: Republican U.S. Senate candidates Justin Murphy and Peter Vallorosi and Republican 6th district candidate Scott Fegler. A challenge was also filed against Democratic 8th district candidate Kyle Jasey’s petitions, but it was rejected by the Division of Elections.
Petitions to run for office were due last Monday, and the deadline to challenge those petitions – in other words, to claim that the candidate in question did not actually receive enough valid signatures to make the ballot – was this afternoon.
Murphy and Vallorosi are two of five Republicans seeking the nomination for U.S. Senate, though both are heavy underdogs to the two frontrunners, Curtis Bashaw and Christine Serrano Glassner. Murphy filed with 1,053 signatures while Vallorosi filed with 1,122, neither of which is comfortably above the minimum of 1,000; both were challenged by Ethan Adams, the political director for Serrano Glassner’s campaign.
Fegler, the GOP organization’s choice to run against Rep. Frank Pallone (D-Long Branch), filed with 269 signatures, a fair bit above the necessary 200. The challenge against him was filed by Gregg Mele, an off-the-line GOP candidate for the same district who would stand to become the presumptive Republican nominee if the challenge is successful and Fegler is booted off the ballot.
Jasey, meanwhile, filed with 516 signatures – more than twice as many as he needed – for his race against Rep. Rob Menendez (D-Jersey City) and Hoboken Mayor Ravi Bhalla. His petitions were challenged by Alexander Freedman, a political consultant working with Bhalla’s campaign, but Freedman did not properly list which signatures he was contesting, and thus the challenge was ruled inadmissible.
Since the deadline to challenge petitions has already passed, a few other candidates who filed with dangerously low signature totals have officially made it onto the ballot. Challengers could have hypothetically targeted 2nd district Democrat Carolyn Rush (220 signatures), 3rd district Democrat Brian Schkeeper (228), 3rd district Republican Michael Faccone (220), or 4th district Republican David Schmidt (227), but no one ended up bothering.
The challenges are scheduled to be heard before Administrative Law Judges tomorrow; all decisions about whether to keep someone on or off the primary ballot, both at the federal level and for lower-level offices, will have to be made by Thursday at 3 p.m., when county clerks will conduct draws for ballot positions.
This story was updated at 7:43 p.m. with the identities of the challengers and to reflect the fact that the challenge against Jasey’s petitions was rejected.
This article was originally published by a newjerseyglobe.com . Read the Original article here. .