Top Class Actions’s website and social media posts use affiliate links. If you make a purchase using such links, we may receive a commission, but it will not result in any additional charges to you. Please review our Affiliate Link Disclosure for more information.
President Donald J. Trump’s bid to stop New Jersey from having nearly all its voters cast mail-in ballots in the upcoming general election was shot down by a federal judge Thursday.
U.S. District Judge Michael Shipp said Trump’s arguments about the potential for voter fraud — and claims such fraud is destined, guaranteed and inevitable — are speculative at best and insufficient to warrant the court’s interference in the state’s election process.
Trump, his re-election campaign and the national and state Republican committees filed a lawsuit and requested an injunction against the mail-in ballot plan in August.
They pointed to past claims of purported voter fraud in New Jersey as evidence, and said legitimate and lawful votes would be diluted by fraudulent ones under the state’s new law to send mail-in ballots to every New Jersey voter.
The arguments made by Trump and the Republican committees “rest on their highly speculative fear” that under New Jersey’s new voting plan “there will be scores of ballots that can be improperly and unlawfully repurposed,” Judge Shipp’s decision said.
“The problem with this theory of harm is that this fraud hasn’t yet occurred,” Judge Shipp wrote. “The plaintiffs have alleged nothing more than the possibility” that lawfully cast votes will be diluted “based solely on a chain of unknown events that may never come to pass.”
The legal challenge from the president also discounts the fact that the state “has its own mechanisms for deterring and prosecuting voter fraud,” the judge said.
The switch to mail-in voting in New Jersey began in August, when Gov. Phil Murphy issued an executive order calling for the ballots to be sent to all registered New Jersey voters in an effort to mitigate the risks of spreading COVID-19. The ballots would be returned via the mail or by delivering them to officially designated and secure county drop boxes.
Trump and his team filed their lawsuit days later.
Then state lawmakers decided to turn the governor’s orders into actual law and passed a bill Aug. 27 setting up the vote-by-mail plan, Politico reported.
The new law also allows election officials to begin counting mail-in ballots sent in by New Jersey voters 10 days before Election Day, according to Politico. Murphy’s executive order also called for election officials to accept ballots postmarked by or on Election Day for up to seven days afterwards.
Trump and the Republican committees previously appealed to the court to issue an injunction against the early counting and late acceptance measures, but Judge Shipp denied those requests, too, in a decision handed down Oct. 6, Bloomberg reported.
New Jersey voters who want to vote in person can take their mail-in ballots to their local polling places and cast provisional ballots there on Election Day.
Trump and the Republicans involved in the New Jersey lawsuit initially called Murphy’s actions a “brazen power grab [that] was not authorized by state law and violates both the Elections Clause and Electors Clause of the U.S. Constitution.” They also referred to an incident that occurred during a special election in May in Paterson, N.J., involving bundles of mail-in ballots that resulted in criminal charges and an invalidated election.
Trump frequently cites the case when speaking out against the expansion of mail-in voting nationwide, saying it is proof of the inherent risk.
On the other hand, some involved in the Paterson case say it is proof that systems in place to catch voter fraud actually work, so the risk of damage is minimal.
Reacting to Judge Shipp’s decision Thursday, Samantha Zager, deputy national press secretary for the Trump campaign, told The Hill, “Governor Murphy, who has disingenuously quipped that New Jersey has ‘a higher probability of being hit by lightning than we do uncovering voter fraud’ better seek shelter — he only has himself and his liberal legislature to blame for the chaos and confusion we’ve already seen ahead of November 3.”
It is unclear whether the campaign or the committees intend to appeal Judge Shipp’s decision.
Trump and Republican and Democratic advocates are involved in dozens of legal challenges involving mail-in ballots, ballot drop boxes, witness requirements, poll watcher regulations, and deadline extensions for voting and for counting ballots nationwide, according to The Associated Press.
Are you a registered voter in New Jersey? Do you plan to take advantage of the opportunity to vote by mail? Tell us about it in the comment section below.
Trump and the Republican committees are represented by Thomas R. McCarthy, Bryan Weir and Cameron T. Norris of Consovoy McCarthy PLLC; and Michael L. Testa Jr. of Testa Heck Testa & White PA.
The New Jersey Voting By Mail November Election Lawsuit is Donald J. Trump for President Inc., et al. v. Philip D. Murphy, et al., Case No. 3:20-cv-01753, in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey.
Read About More Class Action Lawsuits & Class Action Settlements:
2 thoughts onJudge Denies Trump’s Effort to Stop New Jersey Voters from Casting Mail-In Ballots
I have WET macular degeneration. I am also on Elmiron for IC, so I stopped. Without the Elmiron the pain and urgency is unbearable, so I went back on it, just take less. I do get more flare since I reduced it,but can’t live without it. Do I qualify anyway?
Hi Tara, Please email us at Questions@TopClassActions.com, and we’ll do our best to answer your questions. Thank you!