Over the past 24 hours, I’ve received a bunch of procedural questions pertaining to yesterday’s post about a looming court battle between the Old Bridge GOP and the Democrat-controlled county government. Inquiring Save Jerseyans primarily wanted to know what, if anything, could come of a court hearing on October 24th – a date only two weeks out from Election Day.
The Plaintiff’s attorney, Jordan Rickards, was kind enough to provide a little clarification to Save Jersey regarding his clients’ goals:
The return date for the order to show cause is actually fairly accelerated, keeping in mind that this is a civil and not a family law case. The judge can order the county and township to print up new ballots, and new sample ballots, and distribute those at the defendants’s own expense. In fact, the order issued actually says that Old Bridge Township and Middlesex County must show cause why that should NOT be so ordered.”
Radical relief, to be sure. But as we found out this month in Morris County, judges can and do intervene in the electoral process for a perceived “good” reason. The “good” part is naturally the catalyst for much controversy.
In this particular case, Old Bridge Republicans were hopping mad when they accrued an ample amount of local signatures – over 3,000 – to get a lifetime health care ordinance repeal question placed on their November ballot, only to then have the Municipal/County Democrats refuse to honor them. No one familiar with the operation of Middlesex County government should be surprised!
I’ve upload two key suit-related documents for your review, Save Jerseyans. A third pdf file, the “Order to Show Cause” itself, was a little too large for Save Jersey’s storage system:
(1) Letter to Old Bridge Township Clerk
For more info, you can access an in-depth explanation of the Old Bridge GOP’s position at their website.
