Civil liberties group clashes with GOP election chief over voter challenge

The American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey has demanded the Republican chairman of Ocean County’s Board of Elections stop investigating the residency of Democratic and unaffiliated voters in Bay Head, warning the “unlawful mass voter challenge” violates multiple state and federal voting rights laws.

The challenge originated with Dennis Shaning, the chairman of Bay Head’s all-Republican borough council, who compiled a list in August of Bay Head voters whose tax bills get mailed to addresses outside the borough, according to the civil liberties group.

Shaning sent the list — omitting any similarly situated Republicans — to George Gilmore, the longtime chairman of both Ocean County’s election board and its Republican organization, saying he believed they “should not be voting in Bay Head” and urging Gilmore to consider removing them from the borough’s voter rolls, according to a letter the ACLU sent Gilmore and Shaning Tuesday.

Gilmore then sent letters on Sept. 15 to the voters on Shaning’s list, directing them to fill out a “domicile questionnaire” and warning they might be deemed ineligible to vote in the Nov. 3 general election, the ACLU’s letter says. He also asked for documentation proving their residency and said they could attend an Oct. 13 board meeting to provide further information for commissioners mulling their eligibility.

All of that was illegal and unconstitutional, according to the ACLU.

“The Board has targeted voters based on their constitutionally protected political association and chilled their participation on the eve of an election with total disregard for the laws that prohibit precisely this kind of interference,” said Liza Weisberg, the ACLU-NJ’s supervising attorney. “We will always protect New Jerseyans’ access to the ballot — we are urging Ocean County officials to do the same.”

In their letter to Gilmore, Weisberg and Jeanne LoCicero, the civil liberties group’s legal director, advised him to stop his challenge, alert the targeted voters that they can disregard his earlier correspondence, and cancel the Oct. 13 meeting.

If he doesn’t, the lawyers warned, they’ll take him to court.

But Gilmore told the New Jersey Monitor that the county’s elections board, which is comprised of two Republicans and two Democrats, unanimously agreed to investigate the voters Shaning reported — and any decision to reverse course would also have to be made by the full board.

“The only thing we’ve done is ask for information from certain voters in regard to a letter that was submitted to the board. This has been our practice for over 30 years, and it’ll continue to be our practice until a court tells us we cannot do it,” Gilmore told the New Jersey Monitor. “We don’t go out looking for people. We react to challenges that come into the board.”

Shaning did not respond to requests for comment the New Jersey Monitor made via phone and email.

Weisberg estimated 39 Bay Head voters received the letter, but Gilmore couldn’t confirm that, saying he couldn’t remember how many people the letter went to and he didn’t have a copy of it handy to share with the New Jersey Monitor.

One voter contacted has already notified the board asking to be removed from the rolls because they no longer live in New Jersey, Gilmore added. As for the others, he added, “if everybody’s information verifies their domiciles in Bay Head, they’ll all be permitted to vote. Period. End of story.”

Weisberg and LoCicero said the board’s voter-purge effort violated several state and federal laws protecting voting rights, including a state voter empowerment act Gov. Mikie Sherrill (D) signed in July prohibiting intimidation and deceptive practices that discourage voting.

It also violated the National Voter Registration Act, which prohibits both “non-uniform” efforts to target voters for list-maintenance purposes and systematic voter-removal efforts during a 90-day “quiet period” before a federal election, Weisberg and LoCicero wrote.

While New Jersey law requires citizens to vote where they reside, the mailing address on a tax bill doesn’t prove domicile, they wrote.

“It reflects the location where an individual has asked the tax collector to send correspondence (perhaps the address of a relative, a second home, or an accountant’s office), and it furnishes no basis to doubt or displace a voter’s sworn registration address,” they wrote.

The state Supreme Court in 1972 decreed that when someone has more than one residence, “he, and he alone, can decide” where his political “interests” are more important to him, and the state cannot “decide for any voter that he ought to vote from one abode rather than another,” Weisberg and LoCicero wrote.

“A comprehensive statutory scheme prescribes the methods for determining voter eligibility in New Jersey. The process that you have concocted here is not part of it,” they told Gilmore.

Gilmore told the New Jersey Monitor he didn’t know Shaning only submitted Democratic and unaffiliated voters for residency checks, although he called it unsurprising.

“I never reviewed the list. I did not see it. I was told it came in, that there was questions raised, and we authorized the questionnaire to be sent out,” Gilmore said. “I don’t know what Shaning did. He may have only looked for Democrats. Normally, the president of the Republican Club would look to challenge Democrats. The president of the Democrat club would look to challenge Republicans. That’s common sense.”

Weisberg told the New Jersey Monitor her group would give Ocean County time to respond, “but we are prepared to litigate if we need to.”

“The legal violations are so clear, I think it would really behoove Ocean County to work with us to resolve this,” Weisberg said.

Gilmore remained defiant, taking a swipe at the ACLU over Sherrill’s July revelation that thousands of noncitizens were erroneously registered to vote through the state Motor Vehicle Commission, and about 340 of them cast ballots.

“Some voted! But the ACLU would say: ‘Let them vote!'” Gilmore said.

Republicans have cited the motor vehicle goof, which Sherrill blamed on a software error, to argue that the voter rolls brim with ineligible voters. Such claims have been repeatedly debunked, but polling suggests the allegations work to erode public confidence in the electoral system.

Gilmore said the Bay Head challenge was the only one his board has received this election season, but he expected more could arise.

“A lot of times this comes up a couple weeks before the election,” he added.

Republicans comprise the biggest voting bloc of Ocean County voters, representing 42% of the county’s nearly 482,547 registered voters, according to state data. Democrats, in comparison, make up 21%, and unaffiliated voters, 35%, of voters in the county, the data shows. About 47% of Bay Head voters are Republican; 23%, Democrat; and 30%, unaffiliated. The town has voted for Donald Trump all three times he’s run for president.

LoCicero said the ACLU stands ready to protect the ability of voters statewide to cast their ballot.

“We will not let local, state, or federal officials infringe on New Jerseyans’ fundamental right to make their voices heard,” LoCicero said in a statement.