N.J. Attorney General Platkin sides with progressive Democrats on Cherry Hill ballot controversy

Inserting himself into the fight over who gets to run the county party committee in Cherry Hill, New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin has sided with progressive Democrats over the George Norcross-backed Camden County Democratic Committee Inc. (CCDC).

On June 10, three candidates with the South Jersey Progressive Democrats defeated 74 CCDC candidates in an upset with 62% of the vote in the primary election. The CCDC has sued to dispute the election, and a hearing is scheduled for Friday in Camden County Superior Court.

James Beach, the chairman of the CCDC, who also represents Camden County in the New Jersey Senate, joined the suit against the winners of the election: David Stahl, Susan Druckenbrod, and Rena Margulis.

On Monday, Platkin filed an amicus brief on behalf of the progressives. Writing in a post on X the same day, Platkin said: “In our democratic system, voters determine the outcome of an election. And elections have consequences. No one gets to change the rules after the election and subvert the will of voters. We’re committed to protecting the integrity of elections in Cherry Hill and across NJ.”

As a result of the suit, the progressives were temporarily precluded from conducting business until the hearing.

The Platkin brief says that the matter warrants the attorney general’s attention “because the questions presented in this case are of substantial public importance.”

In a filing, the CCDC called the election result not a win for the progressives but a “tie,” which the Platkin brief dismissed as inaccurate, adding that the assertion uses incorrect legal arguments to forward the case.

Kate Delany, head of the progressive Democrats, lauded Platkin’s involvement. “We appreciate all the work he’s doing to address corruption in South Jersey,” she said in an interview Tuesday. “His brief solidified the sense he really cares about this.”

Criticizing Platkin in a statement Tuesday, Beach said the attorney general has “proven himself time and time again to be more focused on headlines and politics than on doing his job well for the people of New Jersey.”

Beach also implied that Platkin is taking aim at him for wider political reasons — “just days after I introduced legislation to remove the [New Jersey] State Police from his oversight.”

Beach is the lead sponsor of a bill that would make the state police its own entity, rather than an agency within the New Jersey Department of Law and Public Safety, which Platkin supervises.

“I and the Democrats and Republicans who are co-sponsoring it with me, can’t be bullied from doing what is right,” Beach added in his statement.

Platkin has a well-documented history with the Norcross machine. In February, a New Jersey judge dismissed racketeering charges against Norcross and five codefendants. It was a setback to Platkin and prosecutors who had accused the Democratic power broker of using threats and intimidation to obtain valuable waterfront property in Camden and millions of dollars in tax credits.

The progressives’ win last month was seen as “an earthquake,” according to Julia Sass Rubin, director of the public policy program at the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University. “Voters overwhelmingly chose them.”

What is at stake is influence over the direction the county committee will take for the next two years. Until this election, the progressives have tried and failed to have a say on the committee.

Voters in Camden County municipalities elect representatives of the Democratic Party to a countywide party committee of about 522 people.

The number sent from each municipality is proportional to its population. Because Cherry Hill is the largest municipality in the county, with more than 78,000 residents, it gets to send the largest contingent — 74 people ― to the party’s countywide committee.

Members of the countywide committee get to make political endorsements on all levels, from local office to president, and to fill vacancies in political jobs.

The primary was the first election after the elimination of the so-called county line.

Until last year, New Jersey ballots would afford preferential treatment to candidates who were endorsed by the county party. The party would be sure to list the names of the preferred candidates in one line, from president down to town council. Meanwhile, the unsupported challengers’ names would be listed “in ballot Siberia,” away from the line, according to Delany, head of the South Jersey progressives.

Voters often would respond by simply voting for all candidates down the line. Because the format gave endorsed candidates such an advantage, Sen. Andy Kim (D., N.J.) sued ahead of last year’s Senate primary and won in court. The New Jersey Legislature subsequently passed a bill eliminating the county line.

But since then, another ballot problem has popped up.

In the county committee race in Cherry Hill, South Jersey Progressive Democrats sued Camden County Clerk Pamela Lampitt in April, alleging she was violating a new primary ballot law by not placing ovals next to each of the candidates’ names.

Lampitt’s office said it was not technically possible to do that, because the CCDC was listing 74 names to vote for in one section. The progressives ran three names. That created a ballot that showed the three progressives’ names next to a single oval, and 74 county Democrats’ names beside their own shared oval.

“Based on that,” Lampitt said last week, “it was imperative for us to provide a vote for one being equal to a vote for all because it was not possible to list all 74 individual [CCDC] names on the ballot itself.”

The progressives won the primary with around 5,000 votes to the CDCC’s more than 3,000 votes.

But the math did not add up to progressive control of the committee, Beach argued, saying in a statement last month that “over 3,000 Cherry Hill voters voted for 74 qualified candidates that did the hard work of getting their names on the ballot. Three random candidates who could not put together a full slate of qualified candidates cannot disenfranchise over 3,000 voters. In short, we won 71 seats. The South Jersey Progressives won three seats.”

That interpretation is flawed, said Micah Rasmussen, director of the Rebovich Institute for New Jersey Politics at Rider University.

“On the ballot, voters were asked to ‘Vote for one’ — either the South Jersey Progressive Democrats or the Camden County Democratic Committee Inc.,” Rasmussen said. “It was clear as day. And the voters voted for the three people, not the 74. They weren’t confused.

“But now the CCDC doesn’t like it because it didn’t work out for them. It’s going to be a really tall order for the organization to win in court.”

There’s no New Jersey statute that requires candidates to put all 74 names of the people who will serve on the county committee on a ballot, an attorney for the progressives said. The three progressive winners get to pick the 71 other people who will serve, added the attorney, Yael Bromberg, a professor of election law at American University Washington College of Law.

She said that since the election, a name change is in order:

“They aren’t the progressives anymore,” she said in an interview Tuesday. “They are the Cherry Hill Democratic County Committee now.”