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According to court documents provided by the councilman and his attorney, candidates for this year’s election were required to submit at least 395 petitions for nomination to the clerk’s office by Aug. 22, with any amendments due by Aug. 26.

Rutherford said he sent the clerk’s office a partial submission of 327 petitions on July 15, with an extra 97 petitions submitted on Aug. 8. Around that time, the clerk informed him that some of the petitions had been deemed “deficient” and were rejected – and he needed an additional 36 to qualify for the ballot.

On Aug. 22, Rutherford submitted another 31 petitions, bringing the total to 455. At that time, the clerk informed him that he also needed to complete the required criminal background check request – which Rutherford claims he finished online at 4:04 p.m., a few minutes after the deadline.

On Friday, Aug. 23, the town clerk sent Rutherford an email noting that only 391 of the 455 petitions he submitted were deemed valid, leaving him four short of the threshold. The email added that the submission was “fatally” deficient, which improperly precluded him from curing any petitions, he argued.

Rutherford said he had to attend a funeral that Saturday, a church worship on Sunday morning and an officer’s ordination on Sunday afternoon. When combined with travel and preparation time, it left him scrambling. And he didn’t see the clerk’s email until the morning of Monday, Aug. 26.

After conferring with the clerk’s office, Rutherford submitted seven additional petitions that afternoon. However, he has argued that at least 18 petitions which were originally submitted should never have been rejected in the first place, and that others were easily “curable.”

Rutherford said the petitions in question included a 19-year-old who had just registered earlier this year before heading off to college, voters who had inverted last names (married and pre-married) on their petition and the town’s voter rolls, and a known “active resident in the community” whose petition was rejected because the signature didn’t match. Another voter apparently had her petition rejected because she wrote her street address as “Quimby” when it should have been “Quinby.” Others were rejected for being “unregistered voters,” but have names and addresses that match the voter rolls and unchallenged signatures.

The councilman filed a lawsuit against the Township of West Orange on Sept. 3. He demanded that the denial of his application to be placed on the ballot be reversed, and requested that a stay be placed on the printing of the official ballots.

COUNCILMAN’S CLAIMS DISPUTED

West Orange Town Clerk Karen Carnevale declined to comment on the pending legal matter, but said a statement will be issued once the issue has been resolved.

In the meanwhile, the clerk’s office has released a letter from a law firm that is representing Carnevale, which disputes Rutherford’s allegations (read it below).

Attorneys claimed that it isn’t the clerk’s responsibility to give candidates status updates on their petitions prior to the statutory deadlines, although the office provided Rutherford with extra information and reminders anyway – something they would have done for every other candidate.

“The clerk’s office stands by the reasons for rejecting each of the rejected petitions,” the law firm wrote. “However, if there are facts that were unknown to the clerk’s office or some argument that Mr. Rutherford believes should have been considered, none of those facts were presented to the clerk during the cure period to let her consider those facts or arguments. He had a chance to do so, and did not.”

The matter is now out of her hands and in the jurisdiction of the courts, attorneys said.

Their letter continued:

“It is unclear under the statute as to whether a candidate can cure a defect in a signature, however, that issue is moot here since Mr. Rutherford did not even attempt to cure any ‘curable’ signatures. The only actions taken by Mr. Rutherford were to produce new signatures, something indisputable prohibited under the statute and communicated to Mr. Rutherford multiple times … As already stated, no deficiencies were cured during the cure period, including providing a final background check as required.”

“While there is no question that cases elected being decided at the polls rather than by technical issues, cases are equally clear that no candidate may appear on the ballot unless they have met the statutory threshold for valid signatures,” the law firm said.

“We believe that each of the clerk’s office’s determinations were correct as to the validity or invalidity of the signatures submitted and the petitions as a whole,” attorneys said. “However, if Mr. Rutherford disagrees, his path is to seek judicial review of those determinations and make his arguments there.”

“Mr. Rutherford’s allegations regarding unconstitutionality and ‘political bad faith’ are unfounded, unwarranted, and, is itself, bad faith,” their letter concludes. “They do not require further discussion here, however, to the extent that Mr. Rutherford seeks to pursue those claims, we will vigorously defend against such allegations.”

Read the letter from the law offices of King, Moench and Collins LLP online here, or view it below.

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