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UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
DISTRICT OF NEW JERSEY

LEAGUE OF WOMEN VOTERS OF NEW
JERSEY, NAACP NEW JERSEY STATE
CONFERENCE, and WILLIAM M. RIGGS,
Plaintiffs,
COMPLAINT
v.
TAHESHA WAY, in her official capacity as
Secretary of State of the State of New Jersey,

Defendant.

INTRODUCTION
1.

This case raises fundamental legal questions about the integrity of New

Jersey’s democratic processes generally, and its disparate impact on voters with
disabilities, the elderly and very young voters, Black, Latina/o, and other voters of
color, and voters for whom English is a second language. New Jersey’s failure to
provide mail-in voters with prompt notice of, and opportunity to cure, signaturerelated issues is unconstitutional.
2.

The State of New Jersey guarantees every voter the right to cast their

ballot by mail. But each election, thousands of mail-in voters are effectively
disenfranchised when the State rejects their mail-in ballots because of inadvertent
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signature-related errors or matters of penmanship. The State gives the voter no
opportunity to remedy the perceived impairment so that their vote may be counted.
3.

New Jersey’s failure to provide mail-in voters with notice and an

opportunity to cure signature-related errors before rejecting their vote-by-mail
ballots is unconstitutional under any circumstance, depriving mail-in voters of their
fundamental right to vote in violation of the First and Fourteenth Amendments to
the United States Constitution, as well as their right to due process of law in violation
of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
4.

This year, amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, the issue takes on greater

urgency because of New Jersey’s already demonstrated—and dramatic—shift
towards voting by mail. While historically fewer than 10 percent of New Jersey
voters voted by mail, pursuant to an executive order issued by Governor Phil Murphy
directing all-mail elections to protect public health, all voters who participated in the
May 12, 2020 elections had no choice but to do so.1 Likewise, the July 7, 2020
primary and November 3, 2020 general elections will see a multifold increase in vote
by mail.
5.

Mail-in voters deserve the same confidence that their vote will be

counted as if they voted at their local polling site on Election Day. But current New

See N.J. Exec. Order No. 105 (Mar. 19, 2020),
https://nj.gov/infobank/eo/056murphy/pdf/EO-105.pdf
1

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Jersey law precludes such confidence. In the upcoming elections, the State’s
procedurally flawed signature-verification system will likely cause thousands, or
even tens of thousands, of vote-by-mail ballots to go uncounted, and thus result in
thousands or tens of thousands of New Jerseyans losing their voice in the political
process.
THE PARTIES
6.

Plaintiff League of Women Voters of New Jersey (“LWVNJ”) is a

membership organization dedicated to promoting civic engagement and protecting
democracy through advocacy, voter education, and voter assistance. As part of its
mission, LWVNJ advocates for expansion of voting opportunities, including through
vote-by-mail, and provides information directly to members who wish to vote by
mail, including by providing links on its website where members can find
information about voting by mail, download an application to vote by mail, and view
a guide to completing the application. LWVNJ has about 1,450 members across the
state. A substantial number of them have previously voted by mail and even more
members intend to vote by mail in New Jersey’s upcoming elections. LWVNJ’s
membership is broad and diverse and includes many individuals who due to age or
disability are at heightened risk of being denied the right to vote because of signature
issues. Members have likely been denied the right to vote due to signature issues in

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previous elections and are statistically likely to be denied the right to vote due to
signature issues in upcoming elections.
7.

Plaintiff NAACP New Jersey State Conference (NJ NAACP) is an

affiliate of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, a nonprofit corporation. The mission of the NJ NAACP is to ensure the political,
educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to eliminate
racial discrimination. The NJ NAACP has approximately 7,000 active members
across the state. The NJ NAACP is active in Hudson County, the most diverse county
in New Jersey, and the county that had the highest rate of ballot rejections due to
signature issues in the state during the 2016 election.2 The NJ NAACP also has a
robust presence in Newark. Newark, the state’s most populous city, has a population
that is 50 percent Black. In 2014, Essex County, the county in which Newark is
located, had the highest rate of ballots rejected because of a signature issue in the
state.3
8.

A substantial number of NJ NAACP members have previously voted

by mail and even more members intend to vote by mail in New Jersey’s upcoming
elections. NJ NAACP’s members have likely been denied the right to vote due to

Election Administration and Voting Survey Datasets (“EAVS 2016”) (2016),
https://www.eac.gov/research-and-data/datasets-codebooks-and-surveys.
3 Election Administration and Voting Survey Datasets (“EAVS 2014”) (2014),
https://www.eac.gov/research-and-data/datasets-codebooks-and-surveys.
2

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signature issues in previous elections and are statistically likely to be denied the right
to vote due to signature issues in upcoming elections. Moreover, because of the
State’s failure to provide mail-in voters with notice of and an opportunity to cure
signature-related issues, in Hudson and Essex Counties, as well as in other counties
in the state with large Black and Brown communities, NJ NAACP’s local branches
must heighten efforts to educate voters about vote-by-mail, signature issues, and
how to determine whether their ballots have been counted.
9.

Plaintiff William M. Riggs is a 78-year-old citizen of the State of New

Jersey, residing in Middlesex County, who is registered to vote by mail and intends
to vote by mail in all future elections. Plaintiff Riggs has Parkinson’s Disease, a
progressive nervous system disorder that affects movement. In 2004, he was
diagnosed with Essential Tremor, a nervous system disorder that causes involuntary
and rhythmic shaking. He was formally diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease in 2016.
Mr. Riggs’s symptoms include a hand tremor—which varies unpredictably in
severity—as well as physical instability.
10.

Mr. Riggs used to have excellent handwriting—often described as

beautiful. But now, his hand tremor, which varies significantly in severity over time
without predictability, has severely affected his penmanship. As a result, he
sometimes finds his own signature to be illegible. Moreover, whereas he used to
routinely sign his full name, he now often can sign his name only as “W.M. Riggs.”

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As such, he reasonably believes that there is a substantial risk that his signature will
be erroneously deemed inauthentic if compared to an earlier exemplar of his
signature.
11.

Mr. Riggs used to vote exclusively in person but has ceased to vote in

person because he no longer has a driver’s license and due to his progressive disease,
he is no longer able to safely drive. Moreover, given his age and health conditions,
it would not be safe for him to vote in person in light of the current COVID-19 crisis.
12.

Defendant Tahesha Way is the Secretary of State of New Jersey and

serves as New Jersey’s chief election official. N.J. Stat. § 52:16A-98. She is
responsible for administering elections in New Jersey, including through the
promulgation of rules and regulations necessary to effectuate elections conducted by
mail, N.J. Stat. §§ 19:62-13 and 19:63-3, and the signature verification process
specifically, N.J. Stat. § 19:62-3(c).4 Through the Administrative Procedures Act,
N.J. Stat. §§ 52:14B-1 to 24, she has broad powers to promulgate rules to effectuate
the language and spirit of New Jersey’s election statutes. She is being sued in her
official capacity.

Although § 19:62-3(c) and § 19:62-13 refer to rules and regulations promulgated
by the Attorney General, “any references to the Attorney General relative to any
elections matter appearing in the statutory law shall be a reference to the Secretary
of State, unless the context or language of the statute provides otherwise.” N.J. Stat.
§ 52:16A-98(b).
4

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JURISDICTION AND VENUE
13.

Plaintiffs bring this action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. This Court has

subject matter jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §§ 1331 and 1343(a).
14.

This Court has jurisdiction to grant both declaratory and injunctive

relief pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §§ 2201 and 2202.
15.

This Court has personal jurisdiction over the Defendant, who resides in

this district and is sued in her official capacity.
16.

Venue is proper in this district pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1391(b).
FACTS
Vote By Mail in New Jersey

17.

In New Jersey, any qualified voter may request a mail-in ballot. N.J.

Stat. § 19:63-3(a).
18.

Certain qualified municipalities with populations of 500 people or less

may elect to conduct all elections entirely by mail, and voters in those jurisdictions
are automatically provided with mail-in ballots. N.J. Stat. § 19:62-2(a-b).
19.

To request a mail-in ballot, a voter must provide their name, the address

at which they are registered to vote, the address to which they want their ballot sent,
their phone number, and their signature. N.J. Stat. § 19:63-3(a-b) The voter may also
provide their email address and opt to enroll in the permanent by-mail voter list to
receive mail-in ballots in all future elections without submitting any further request.

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N.J. Stat. § 19:63-3(e)(1). As a result, some mail-in voters submit their mail-in ballot
request months or years before the upcoming election in which they will cast a ballot.
20.

Once the county clerk in the voter’s county of registration receives their

mail-in ballot application, the clerk must verify the voter’s identity by comparing
the signature on the ballot request form to the signature the voter provided when they
registered to vote. N.J. Stat. § 19:63-8. If the clerk deems the signatures a match, the
vote-by-mail application is approved, and the voter is added to the rolls of
individuals who may vote by mail. Id. If the clerk believes the signatures do not
match, the application is disapproved, and the voter is notified of the disapproval
and the reason therefor. Id. Alternatively, the clerk may also use “any other available
information” to make the eligibility determination. See N.J. Stat. § 19:63-8.
21.

Beginning 45 days prior to an election, the State sends mail-in ballots

to voters on the vote-by-mail rolls. N.J. Stat. § 19:63-9.
22.

Although voters generally complete this process independently and in

secret, they can receive assistance from a family member. N.J. Stat. §§ 19:63-13,
19:63-16.
23.

On information and belief, neither the State, nor any of New Jersey’s

21 county clerks’ offices, warns voters that the signatures they provide throughout
this process will be examined to determine the validity of their ballots once they are
cast. N.J. Stat. §§ 19:63-11, 19:63-13. Nor do the State or counties inform voters

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that if their local election official finds a discrepancy with their signature, the official
will reject their ballot entirely.
24.

Rather, in at least some New Jersey counties, including Middlesex and

Monmouth, mail-in voters are informed that all mail-in ballots are counted and
included in the election results.5
25.

Promptly upon receiving a mail-in ballot, the county board of elections

in the voter’s county of registration must examine a voter’s ballot envelope to
determine if the ballot was validly cast. If the county board of elections determines
that a voter’s signature is missing or does not “match” either the signature on the
voter’s mail-in ballot application form or their signature in the statewide voter
registration system, the ballot is rejected as invalid and not counted. N.J. Stat. §
19:63-17.
26.

Upon information and belief, New Jersey does not require that

officials of the State’s 21 county boards of elections receive any training in signature
or handwriting analysis, nor does it provide them with written standards or
guidelines to aid in this assessment.

See Middlesex County NJ, FAQ About Elections,
http://www.middlesexcountynj.gov/Government/Departments/CS/Pages/County%
20Clerk/FAQ%20About%20Elections.aspx (last visited May 13, 2020); Hudson
County NJ, FAQ About Elections, Monmouth County Votes, Vote By Mail,
https://www.monmouthcountyvotes.com/voter-information/vote-by-mail/ (last
visited May 13, 2020).
5

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27.

Upon information and belief, New Jersey does not require officials in

any of the State’s 21 counties to spend any minimum amount of time comparing the
signature exemplars when examining mail-in ballots.
28.

New Jersey does not provide voters whose mail-in ballots are deemed

to have signature-related defects with any pre-deprivation notice, nor does it give
the voter any opportunity to cure the defect.
29.

Indeed, New Jersey law only requires that the State provide voters with

a “free-access system,” such as a toll-free hotline or website, that they may access
after the election has concluded to determine whether their ballot was counted, or
the reason for its rejection, if applicable. N.J. Stat. § 19:61-5. At that point, if a voter
learns that New Jersey has rejected their ballot—either by affirmatively inquiring
themselves or through any post-deprivation notice—the voter has no opportunity to
have their vote counted.
30.

This contrasts sharply with New Jersey’s process for mail-in ballot

applications, where the voter is notified if there is any deficiency related to their
signature that results in the rejection of their application, enabling them to renew
their application or choose to vote in person. N.J. Stat. § 19:63-8.
31.

Similarly, New Jersey law requires that signature comparisons

performed by election officials during in-person voting occur openly and publicly.
If any challenge is raised concerning the authenticity of a voter’s signature during

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in-person voting, the voter is permitted to establish, in real time, their right to vote
by appropriate proof. N.J. Stat. §§ 19:15-17(a), 19:15-18.1. Mail-in voters are given
no such opportunity.
32.

Mail-in voting need not be conducted this way. New Jersey law

specifically authorizes Defendant Way to adopt rules and regulations to govern the
vote by mail system. State law also charges Defendant Way with overseeing the
training of local election officials. N.J. Stat. § 19:50-1(b).
33.

It is within Defendant’s power to ensure that mail-in voters are provided

with pre-rejection notice and a meaningful opportunity to cure, and to implement
any other trainings or guidelines necessary to standardize the signature verification
process across New Jersey’s 21 counties. Defendant has issued no rules or
regulations, prepared no guidelines, and conducted no trainings to standardize the
signature verification process or provide absentee voters with pre-deprivation notice
of signature mismatches and an opportunity to cure.
34.

Implementing a pre-rejection notice and opportunity to cure procedure

for voters would not significantly burden the State. State and local election officials
already have access to voter files containing voter information such as addresses,
phone numbers, and emails, which they could use to provide mail-in voters whose
ballots have signature related impairments with notice that their ballot may be
rejected and an opportunity to cure.

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New Jersey’s Signature Verification Procedure for Mail-In Ballots Is
Unacceptably Error-Prone
35.

Signature verification is an inherently flawed means of determining

whether a mail-in ballot is fraudulent or inappropriately cast.
36.

No two signatures are exactly alike because of the many factors that

affect the consistency of a person’s signature from one signing (i.e., the mail-in
ballot application or voter registration) to another (i.e., the mail-in ballot), including
very variable factors such as type of pen, writing surface, stress, or other writing
conditions.
37.

Signature variance is more common among certain populations of

voters, including those with disabilities, those with less formal levels of education,
elderly and young voters, and voters for whom English is a second language.
Parkinsonism and other neurological disorders can also significantly affect
handwriting characteristics, engender unfounded scrutiny over the authenticity of
signatures, and impede accurate assessment of them.
38.

And while New Jersey does not maintain the racial or demographic data

of those whose ballots are rejected, a study in Florida found that Black and Latina/o
voters were more likely to have their ballots rejected. In 2016, 1.9% of Black voter

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ballots were rejected, 1.8% of Hispanic voter ballots were rejected, while only 0.7%
of white voter ballots were rejected.6
39.

Even experienced forensic document examiners (FDEs) can find it

difficult if not impossible to distinguish natural variations in a person’s signature
from fraudulent ones, especially where the reviewer has limited exemplars to
compare.
40.

Laypersons, such as New Jersey election officials, have a significantly

higher rate of error in determining whether signatures are genuine. Laypersons are
also more likely to wrongly determine that authentic signatures are not genuine than
to make the opposite error. In one study, laypeople incorrectly judged authentic
signatures to be inauthentic more than 26% of the time.
41.

Thus, in every election, the untrained election officials responsible for

signature verification under New Jersey’s mail-in ballot verification system reject
validly cast ballots because of erroneous judgments on signature matching issues.
42.

Also, because election officials undertake this task without

standardized guidelines or procedures governing their analysis, they reject ballots
based on arbitrary, variable criteria. Absentee ballot rejection rates for signaturematching issues therefore vary significantly from county to county in New Jersey.

See Daniel A. Smith, Vote-By-Mail Ballots Cast in Florida, American Civil
Liberties Union of Florida (Sep. 19, 2018),
https://www.aclufl.org/en/publications/vote-mail-ballots-cast-florida.
6

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For example, in the 2016 general election, Hudson County, New Jersey’s most
diverse county, rejected mail-in ballots based on failure to match signatures at a rate
172 times the rejection rate in Gloucester County, one of the whitest counties in the
state. EAVS 2016, supra note 2.
43.

Similarly, the unintentional omission of a voter’s signature from their

mail-in ballot often reflects innocent user error rather than fraud or misconduct. Such
an error could be easily resolved by providing the affected voter with notice of the
problem and an opportunity to fix it.
New Jersey’s Constitutionally Deficient Signature-Verification Process Denies the
Right to Vote to Thousands of Voters
44.

Each election, New Jersey’s signature verification system impacts

thousands of New Jersey voters, often constituting at least one percent of all mail-in
voters, who have their ballots rejected for benign signature-related deficiencies,
including that they did not sign the ballot envelope or that their signature could not
be “matched” to either the vote-by-mail application or the voter registration form.
45.

During the 2016 Presidential General Election, for example, over

355,000 New Jersey voters cast their ballots by mail. About 4,000 of those voters,
representing nearly one percent of the by-mail votes cast in the election, did not have
their votes counted because of a signature-related problem, including over 1100
rejected because of the perceived lack of a signature-match. EAVS 2016, supra note
2.
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46.

Over 11% of all absentee ballots rejected statewide in the 2016 election

were rejected based on a perceived lack of signature-match. Id. However, the
likelihood of a signature-related ballot rejection varied significantly depending on
the absentee voter’s county of residence. For example, whereas 11.76% of rejected
absentee ballots were for signature-mismatch issues in Union County, 38.97% of
rejected absentee ballots were for signature-match issues in Hudson County. Id.
47.

Two years later, in the 2018 Midterm Election, the results were no

better. Out of the approximately 400,000 New Jersey voters that cast their ballots by
mail, approximately 6,000, or about 1.5% of all by-mail voters, had their ballots
rejected—and their votes consequently not counted—based on a signature-related
deficiency, including nearly 2,000 due to the perceived lack of a signature-match.7
48.

Again, the likelihood of a signature-related ballot rejection varied based

on the absentee voter’s county of residence. Whereas in the 2018 election, 16.4% of
absentee ballots rejected statewide were rejected for signature-match issues, the rate
of rejection varied dramatically from county to county. EAVS 2018, supra note 8.
For example, while 3.3% of rejected absentee ballots were rejected in Union County
for signature-match issues, 34.9% of rejected mail-in ballots were rejected in
Hudson County because of alleged signature mismatch. Id.
Election Administration and Voting Survey Datasets Version 1.2 (“EAVS 2018”)
(Feb. 18, 2020), https://www.eac.gov/research-and-data/datasets-codebooks-andsurveys.
7

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49.

Upon information and belief, none of the voters whose ballots were

rejected in the 2016 or 2018 elections received pre-rejection notice that their ballots
were impaired by a signature defect, nor did they have any opportunity to cure the
issue and have their vote counted. Upon information and belief, if these absentee
voters had been provided notice and an opportunity to cure before their ballots were
rejected, many would have been able to verify their identity notwithstanding the
signature-related discrepancy. As a result, the State rejected valid ballots cast by
many eligible New Jersey voters.
50.

There is no legitimate state interest advanced by New Jersey’s

unreliable signature verification procedures, or by its failure to provide notice and
an opportunity to cure when a ballot is rejected because of an ostensible signaturerelated defect.
New Jersey’s Constitutionally Deficient Signature-Verification Process Will Affect
a Growing Number of Voters
51.

The number of New Jerseyans who will vote by mail—and thus the

number that will have their ballot rejected through New Jersey’s signatureverification process—is likely to increase significantly in upcoming elections,
including the July 7, 2020 primary election and the November 3, 2020 general
election.
52.

Even before the May 12, 2020 election, which was conducted entirely

by mail, voters in New Jersey had already begun choosing to vote by mail in
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increasing numbers, and their ability to do so was recently made even easier by New
Jersey’s expansion of its vote-by-mail law.
53.

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic is expected to further accelerate

New Jersey’s dramatic shift towards mail-in voting. The State, echoing the Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention (“CDC”) recommends that to protect themselves
from COVID-19, all citizens should “stay at home . . . except to get essentials,” and
that “additional steps” may be warranted for older adults and those with chronic or
underlying conditions that place them at increased risk of complications from the
disease.8 Moreover, the CDC’s first recommendation for election officials in the
midst of this pandemic is to “[e]ncourage mail-in methods of voting.”9
54.

New Jersey also heeded the CDC’s advice for the May 12, 2020 local

elections, when Governor Phil Murphy ordered that all ballots be cast by mail. As a
result, counties mailed all registered voters a vote-by-mail ballot. Without an
application, the signature on the voter’s ballot will be compared to the voter’s
registration form. This eliminated the nominal notice process New Jersey law has of
alerting voters that their vote-by-mail application was rejected because of a signature

New Jersey COVID-19 Information Hub, https://covid19.nj.gov/faqs/njinformation/general-public/how-can-i-protect-myself-from-covid-19/novelcoronavirus (last updated May 7, 2020).
9 Ctrs. for Disease Control and Prevention, Recommendations for Election Polling
Locations, https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/community/electionpolling-locations.html (last updated Mar. 27, 2020).
8

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match issue. Moreover, it ensured that the signature comparison process will be
based upon even staler signatures dating back potentially decades.
55.

On May 15, 2020, Governor Phil Murphy announced the upcoming

July primary elections will be held primarily by mail. Mail-in ballots will be sent to
all registered Democratic and Republican voters and applications for mail-in ballots
will be sent to all unaffiliated registered voters. In-person polling locations will be
limited.
56.

Based on these state and federal recommendations, and out of their own

sense of health and safety, New Jersey voters are expected to cast their ballots by
mail in historic numbers in the upcoming July and November elections. By voting
by mail where possible, New Jersey citizens can do their part to protect public health
and reduce crowds and lines at polling locations that may be maintained to serve
populations that rely on or strongly prefer in-person voting, including some people
of color, voters with disabilities or language needs, or those with unreliable postal
service.
57.

As a growing number of New Jersey voters rely on the State’s mail

voting system, whether by choice or necessity, more voters risk having their ballot
rejected because of a signature-related impairment. Court intervention is necessary
to ensure the State provides these voters with constitutionally necessary notice and
an opportunity to cure and to safeguard these voters’ fundamental right to vote.

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FIRST CLAIM FOR RELIEF
42 U.S.C. § 1983: Denial of Due Process Under the Fourteenth Amendment
58.

Plaintiffs reallege and incorporate by reference the allegations in the

preceding paragraphs.
59.

An individual has a liberty interest in the fundamental right to vote that

is protected by the right to due process. New Jerseyans also have a statutorily
protected liberty interest in voting by mail.
60.

At a minimum, procedural due process requires that the State provide

its absentee voters with notice and a meaningful opportunity to be heard before being
denied their protected liberty interest.
61.

The requirement for pre-deprivation notice is particularly important

when deprivation will result in irreparable injury, as is the case with voting.
62.

New Jersey’s failure to provide absentee voters with any opportunity to

cure signature-related deficiencies with their absentee ballot—particularly given the
unreliability of signature matching and election officials’ unfettered discretion to
reject ballots—does not meet these minimum requirements of procedural due
process and is thus unconstitutional.
63.

Such an opportunity to cure is particularly warranted here given the

balance of implicated interests and harms. See Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U.S. 319,
335 (1976). First, absent relief, absentee voters may be erroneously deprived of their

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fundamental right to vote. Second, the risk of erroneous deprivation caused by the
unreliability of signature matching and election officials’ unfettered discretion to
reject ballots is high. Finally, the implementation of procedures to provide absentee
voters with notice and an opportunity to cure would impose only a minimal burden
on the State, which already maintains records during the ordinary course of business
containing voter contact information, and already has infrastructure in place to carry
out notice requirements given its existing legal obligation to inform mail-in voting
applicants when their application is rejected because of a signature issue.
64.

Absent the implementation of procedural safeguards, including notice

and a meaningful opportunity to cure perceived signature-related deficiencies before
a vote-by-mail ballot is rejected, mail-in voters in New Jersey will continue to face
a substantial risk of being deprived of their fundamental right to vote without due
process.
65.

The State has no legitimate interest in permitting untrained local

officials to reject voters’ ballots based on an unreliable signature authentication
process without providing voters any notice or opportunity to cure.
66.

New Jersey’s current signature-verification procedure denies New

Jersey voters procedural due process in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment.

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SECOND CLAIM FOR RELIEF
42 U.S.C. § 1983: Denial of the Fundamental Right to Vote in Violation of the
First and Fourteenth Amendments
67.

Plaintiffs reallege and incorporate by reference the allegations in the

preceding paragraphs.
68.

“There is no right more basic in our democracy than the right to

participate in electing our political leaders.” McCutcheon v. FEC, 572 U.S. 185, 191
(2014). The Supreme Court has recognized that “voting is of the most fundamental
significance under our constitutional structure.” Burdick v. Takushi, 504 U.S. 428,
433 (1992) (quoting Illinois Bd. of Elections v. Socialist Workers Party, 440 U.S.
173, 184 (1979)).
69.

When analyzing the constitutionality of a restriction on voting, the

Court “must weigh ‘the character and magnitude of the asserted injury to the rights
protected by the First and Fourteenth Amendments that the plaintiff seeks to
vindicate’ against ‘the precise interests put forward by the State as justifications for
the burden imposed by its rule,’ taking into consideration ‘the extent to which those
interests make it necessary to burden the plaintiff’s rights.’” Burdick, 504 U.S. at
434 (quoting Anderson v. Celebrezze, 460 U.S. 780, 789 (1983)). Unreasonable,
severe, or discriminatory burdens on the right to vote are subject to particularly close
constitutional scrutiny.

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70.

Defendant’s unreliable signature-verification process rejects a

significant number of validly cast ballots every election cycle as a result of benign
discrepancies or technical errors. Defendant denies the individuals who cast these
ballots the right to vote without any pre-deprivation notice or opportunity to verify
their ballots. This system operates without uniform standards across counties and
therefore puts voters’ ballots at risk of rejection based on arbitrary, variable criteria.
Such a system imposes a severe burden on voters’ fundamental right to vote.
71.

The severity of this burden is exacerbated by voters’ increasing need to

rely on mail ballots to effectively cast a ballot while safeguarding their health. Voters
should not be required to risk their health or lives to cast a ballot they can be
confident will count.
72.

As discussed above, each time a county board of elections—comprised

of laypersons with no expertise in handwriting analysis—subjectively believes there
is a mismatch between the signature accompanying the voter’s mail-in ballot and the
signature in the voter’s file, that ballot is not counted, notwithstanding the many
benign factors that can cause signature variation. And those factors place certain
voters at heightened risk on the basis of their age, disability, national origin, race, or
educational background without notice that their votes, once cast, could be rejected,
or that they cannot be cured once their ballots are rejected.

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73.

In contrast to the mail-in voting system, voters facing signature

verification issues at their polling location are afforded the opportunity to verify their
identity and cast a ballot. New Jersey law affords no similar opportunities to mail-in
voters.
74.

Defendant can proffer no justification for this error-prone and

procedurally deficient system that would outweigh the injury the rejection of
thousands of ballots each election inflicts on the eligible voters who cast those
ballots.
75.

New Jersey’s current signature verification procedure unduly burdens

the right to vote in violation of the First and Fourteenth Amendments.
THIRD CLAIM FOR RELIEF
42 U.S.C. § 1983: Denial of Equal Protection Under the Fourteenth
Amendment
76.

Plaintiffs reallege and incorporate by reference the allegations in the

preceding paragraphs.
77.

The Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment requires

“that all persons similarly situated should be treated alike.” City of Cleburne v.
Cleburne Living Ctr., 473 U.S. 432, 439 (1985). “Having once granted the right to
vote on equal terms, the State may not, by later arbitrary and disparate treatment,
value one person’s vote over that of another.” Bush v. Gore, 531 U.S. 98, 104-05
(2000).
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78.

In the absence of any state-wide standards, New Jersey’s unreliable and

error-prone signature-verification procedures subject mail-in voters to arbitrary
differences in the way signatures are analyzed depending on the county in which
they reside.
79.

This standardless system has led to significantly disparate rates of

signature matching rejections from county to county in New Jersey.
80.

New Jersey’s reliance on signature matching to verify absentee voters,

without any standardized guidance, training, or procedures in place to provide such
voters with notice and an opportunity to cure signature-related ballot rejections, does
not further any compelling or legitimate state interest sufficient to justify the unequal
treatment of voters.
81.

New Jersey’s current signature verification procedure violates the

Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
PRAYER FOR RELIEF
WHEREFORE, the Plaintiffs respectfully request that this Court:
(a) Issue a declaratory judgment that New Jersey’s existing signature
verification procedures for mail-in voting unlawfully infringe the right to due
process in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the
United States;

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(b) Issue a declaratory judgment that New Jersey’s existing signature
verification procedures for mail-in voting unlawfully impose an undue
burden on the right to vote in violation of the First and Fourteenth
Amendments to the Constitution of the United States;
(c) Issue a declaratory judgment that New Jersey’s existing signature

verification procedures for mail-in voting unlawfully infringe the guarantee
of equal protection in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment to the
Constitution of the United States;
(d) Issue preliminary and permanent injunctions enjoining Defendant, her
agents, employees, and successors, and all those persons acting in concert or
participation with them from implementing signature verification procedures
that infringe constitutional rights;
(e) Preliminarily and permanently order Defendant to establish a procedure by
which voters may attempt to cure deficiencies in their absentee ballots, to
include providing timely notice of such deficiencies and a meaningful
opportunity to cure;
(f) Grant Plaintiffs’ attorney’s fees, costs, and litigation expenses pursuant to 42
U.S.C. § 1988 and 42 U.S.C. § 12133; and
(g) Grant other and further relief that the Court may determine to be necessary
or proper.

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Dated: May 18, 2020
Respectfully submitted,

CAMPAIGN LEGAL CENTER

KAUFMAN LIEB LEBOWITZ & FRICK LLP

Danielle Lang*
Rob Weiner*
Ravi Doshi*
Dana Paikowsky*^
1101 14th Street NW, Suite 400
Washington, DC 20005
Telephone: (202) 736-2200

/s/ Alanna Kaufman
Alanna Kaufman
David A. Lebowitz*
10 East 40th Street, Suite 3307
New York, NY 10016
Telephone: (212) 660-2332

NEW JERSEY INSTITUTE FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE
Ryan Haygood*
Andrea McChristian*
Henal Patel
60 Park Place, Suite 511
Newark, New Jersey 07102
Telephone: (973) 624-9400
Counsel for Plaintiffs
* Applications for admission
pro hac vice forthcoming
^Licensed in CA only; supervision
by Danielle Lang, D.C. Bar
member."

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