The Court Renders a Decision … Sort of
Superior Court Judge Mara Zazzali Jones released an opinion yesterday which appears to determine that Mayor Lori Hohenleitner was duly elected Mayor of Atlantic Highlands in spite of the challenge by her opponent Councilman James Murphy.
The opinion, however, left the decision up to a further conference among the Judge and the attorneys for both officials.
While the Court found three instances where she felt Murphy, as the Petitioner did not always meet his burden of proof in the case of those votes he contested, she found several other instances when he indeed did and those votes should be rejected.
Hohenleitner had also filed with the court three challenges she felt were against voters she did not feel were eligible to vote in the borough in November. The judge upheld her proofs in those cases and rejected the votes, meaning she rejected three voters Murphy challenged, and another three Hohenleitner challenged.
That number, six in total, is not enough to overturn the election, and Judge Zazzali indicated that going forward, “the court may require additional testimony for the reasons set forth in an earlier court case in Parsippany . That is because the six illegal votes exceed Hohenleitner’ s margin of a five vote victory.
The Judge cited the earlier decision that said “the statute specifically grants the judge the power to require voters to disclose relevant information, including the authority to ‘compel [a voter] to disclose for whom he voted.”
It is for this reason Judge Zazzali concluded she “shall conference this matter to address the effect of these findings of fact and conclusions of law on this election challenge.”
The opinion itself reflects a major error in the written opinion. On page five of the decision, where the background and history of the lawsuit filed by Councilman Murphy when he lost the election Hohenleitner, who was also a councilwoman at the time, is legally identified and laid out, Judge Zazzali identified Murphy as the Democrat candidate for Mayor and Hohenleitner as the Republican candidate.
Neither member of the borough council responded to requests for a statement hours after the release of the opinion.
Council meets tonight, Thursday, April 11 at 7 p.m. for its regular meeting and the matter is not expected to come up for any discussion during the meeting.
