'Cause ya gotta have good faith

From: POLITICO New Jersey Playbook - Thursday Oct 26,2023 10:56 am

Oct 26, 2023

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Good Thursday morning!

It looks pretty clear to me that New Jersey law requires candidates and petition circulators to sign an oath stating that, among other things, they’re filing the forms “in good faith.”

While “good faith” is a pretty vague term, I think we can all agree that if you’re a “phantom candidate” running merely to siphon votes off another candidate to help another — like what’s allegedly happening in District 4 — you’re operating in bad faith.

Despite this law, New Jersey’s petition forms that state legislative candidates fill out include no such language about good faith on the oath candidates or circulators have to sign. I’m not sure when they last did, if ever.

Why is the absence of a couple words important? Because the law against “false swearing” is one potential legal avenue prosecutors can pursue to determine if “phantom candidates” broke the law. There are other laws that could conceivably be violated by running a bad-faith phantom campaign as well, though reading through them none seems quite as clear cut to this instance as this one.

Of course, it’s hard to prove intent. I talked to three election lawyers, all of whom had different opinions about whether leaving the words “good faith” out of the candidates’ oaths would make it harder to prosecute them, or even that the term is too vague to be prosecutable.

Whether or not running fake candidates is a crime, it’s harmful to the democratic process. Nobody should be applauded for being politically savvy in their efforts to confuse voters, even if it doesn’t meet the threshold of illegality. But it seems it’s a pretty common tactic for at least one of New Jersey’s political machines.

Read more about it here.

TIPS? FEEDBACK? Email me at mfriedman@politico.com.

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WHAT TRENTON MADE

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Biden's Beltway

2020 ELECTION DENIER BECOMES SPEAKER — How Mike Johnson won an impossible job, by POLITICO’s Sarah Ferris, Burgess Everett and Olivia Beavers: Mike Johnson’s anonymity in Washington was a driving force in his election as speaker, making him perhaps the only Republican to escape the House’s widespread feuding. His novice status won’t help with the burden of actually governing. The Louisianan with a distinct drawl on Wednesday became the unlikely leader to an unruly group of House Republicans that will now rely on him to run their side of the Capitol. He was next to no one’s first pick, but the onetime No. 7 Republican was shielded from much of the intraparty political drama that tanked speaker picks before him — from Kevin McCarthy to Jim Jordan to Tom Emmer. “Politics is like the fight business. The longer you’re in it, the more you get beat up,” said Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), explaining Johnson’s survival. Other than his conservative reputation and leading role in challenging the 2020 election, most senators have had little or no personal contact with Johnson.

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LOCAL

A BAD AUTUMN FOR POLITICIANS WHOSE NAMES INCLUDE ‘MEN’ AND ‘DEZ’ — “New election fraud charges against Paterson City Council President Alex Mendez and wife,” by The Paterson Press’ Joe Malinconico: “Councilman Alex Mendez faces a new batch of criminal election fraud charges, including accusations against his wife and campaign manager, stemming from the 2020 ward council races that resulted in the long-pending indictment against him. Attorney General Matthew Platkin announced late Wednesday afternoon that state investigators had determined that Mendez, 48, illegally collected ballots and oversaw the fraudulent mailing of ballots, while members of his campaign stole ballots from residential mailboxes and discarded several that did not show a vote for their candidate. Platkin also said Mendez and his co-defendants tampered with witnesses to avoid prosecution. ‘This is unfair,’ Mendez said Wednesday. ‘They rushed to charge me four years ago, and when they knew those charges weren’t working and were going nowhere, they charge me with something else.’ Authorities did not reveal why it took 41 months after the May 2020 elections to file the new charges. The original case against Mendez has gone through repeated delays.”

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EVERYTHING ELSE

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