Ballot Error Could Taint Congressional District Democratic Primary

A challenge to tomorrow's Democratic primary election results for New Jersey's 11th U.S. Congressional district could already be in line due to a mistake on Morris County ballots.

In most counties, Douglas Herbert is correctly listed as the only candidate in the first column of the Democratic portion of the ballot. But in Morris County, James D. Kelly Jr. — also vying for the Democratic nomination — is listed in the same column, incorrectly suggesting he's been endorsed by the Morris County Democratic Committee. 

In Morris County, it's traditional that the Democratic committee endorses a candidate, who is then listed on the party's line on the ballot. The placement of candidate Kelly, who is running with the ballot tagline "End Corruption in Government," underneath Herbert disrupts the party's column-one endorsement.

"It's as if the regular Morris County Democratic Party allowed him to use and be in their line, which is not in the case," Herbert said.

"If you know anything about election law, once the ballots are printed it's pretty much done until election day," he said. "There's not really much we can do with it until after the election to see if it affected anything."

If Herbert loses, the name placement might become an issue.

"We're going to wait to see what happens tomorrow, it's a mess up, but if it plays out that there is not a problem, then there's no problem."

"If something happens, i.e. I lose, then we might have to readdress it with the county clerk for doing that," Herbert said.