Ballot Access Fight Grows in Harrison Election Cases

Two recent Hudson County ballot-access disputes raise a basic question for voters and candidates: when a person asks the County Clerk’s Office how many petition signatures are required to run for office, should they be able to rely on the answer when they turn in their Petition with the stated required number of signatures?

That question is now front and center after a New Jersey Globe article reported that Hudson County Clerk’s Office Supervisor of Elections, Amber Vargas, testified in the Patricia Waiters ballot case that “it’s not the responsibility of the clerk’s office” to provide signature guidance to candidates. That statement stands in sharp contrast to the facts reported in YourHarrison.com’s article concerning two Harrison candidates who allege they relied on information provided by Amber Vargas, but later their Petitions to Run for Mayor and 1st Ward Councilperson in Harrison, NJ, were rejected for insufficient signatures.

In an email thread filed with the Complaints regarding the Town of Harrison election, Amber Vargas provided inaccurate minimum signature numbers for Dominick Ritorto, running for Mayor of Harrison, and Michael Verile, running for 1st Ward Councilperson.  Amber subsequently rejected Ritorto & Verile’s petitions, stating higher minimum signature numbers were required to run for Mayor and Councilperson, respectively.

Three Candidates Given False / Inaccurate Information

The New Jersey Globe reported that Patricia Waiters, an independent candidate for Hudson County Commissioner, was kept off the ballot after filing 221 petition signatures, 29 short of the 250 required. The article reported that Waiters claimed county employees gave her different signature totals, creating confusion and thwarting the momentum of her door-to-door effort to gather signatures for her petition. According to the Globe, county counsel Alberico De Pierro argued that it was not the County Clerk’s job to tell a candidate how many signatures were needed, and Vargas affirmed that “it’s not the responsibility of the clerk’s office.” But the Hudson County Clerk’s office did in fact provide what turned out to be incorrect information on the minimum voter signatures required for the General Election on at least two different occasions.

Hudson County Clerk Signature Email

In the Town of Harrison case, Amber Vargas, as Supervisor of Elections at the Hudson County Clerk’s office, sent an email providing specific petition signature counts for independent candidates seeking to run in the November General Election. The email listed the following numbers: County Level — 250; Harrison Mayor — 50; Harrison 1st Ward — 10; Harrison 2nd Ward — 25; Harrison 3rd Ward — 10; and Harrison 4th Ward — 10..

Vargas testified in the Patricia Waiters case that providing such guidance was not the Clerk’s Office’s responsibility. In the Harrison case, Vargas provided the minimum number of signatures required for the Harrison races, which was then published in an article in YourHarrison.com and relied upon by the candidates running for Mayor & Council in Harrison. Ironically, on behalf of the Hudson County Clerk and as its Supervisor of Elections, Amber rejected Dominic Ritorto's petition for Mayor of Harrison and Michael Verile's petition for 1st Ward Councilperson, citing that the petitions “did not meet the [minimum] signature requirements,” citing New Jersey Statute N.J.S.A. 19:13-5. The signatures met the number communicated via email by Amber Vargas to YouHarrison.com and relied upon by the two candidates.

Reliance On Inaccurate Signatures Required

As previously reported, Dominick Ritorto and Michael Verile filed separate but related lawsuits against the Hudson County Clerk’s Office after their petitions were rejected. The lawsuits allege that both candidates relied on an incorrect number of signatures required on their Petitions to be placed on the election ballot. Amber Vargas provided inaccurate information about the minimum number of petition signatures required to be on the General Election Ballot in November. Those numbers were included in an article entitled “Harrison Candidates Fight To Get On November Ballot” on YourHarrison.com.

Minimum Number Of Signatures Per Vargas

Vargas’ email stated that 50 signatures were required for the Mayor of Harrison and 10 for the 1st Ward Council seat. After the petitions were submitted, however, the Clerk’s Office rejected Ritorto’s petition on the ground that 190 signatures were required for Mayor and rejected Verile’s petition on the ground that 31 signatures were required for the 1st Ward Council seat.

Hudson County Clerk Failed To Correct Their Error

In a court hearing this week, Counsel for the Hudson County Clerk’s office stated that Ritorto & Verile relied upon an article on YourHarrison.com and therefore they did not reach out to candidates Ritorto & Verile to advise them that the information they received was inaccurate and that they needed additional signatures on their petitions for elected office.  The problem with that statement is that no one from the Hudson County Clerk’s office communicated with YourHarrison to correct the false information provided to and published by YourHarrison.com.

Another important fact in the Harrison cases is that Hudson County Clerk E. Junior Maldonado was copied on emails from Amber Vargas that contained incorrect petition-signature numbers for the Town of Harrison elections. Maldonado did not correct the error his staff member had made before the candidates relied on the information.

Mayor Fife Challenged Ritorto and Verile Petitions

Per statements made in court, Harrison Mayor James Fife was the one who filed a challenge to the petitions, citing insufficient signatures.  Mayor Fife’s attorney, Schuyler Abbott of Castano Quigley Cherami, appeared via Zoom in a hearing before Assignment Judge David Katz in Jersey City this week. Abbott requested to join the litigation seeking to keep mayoral candidate Dominic Ritorto and 1st Ward Council candidate Michael Verile off the November 2026 General Election ballot. Abbott did not however enter an appearance for Harrison’s 1^st Ward Councilman Jesus Huaranga.. The Castano Quigley Cherami law firm is the  Harrison Town Attorney.

In the Patricia Waiters case, the Hudson County Clerk’s Office maintains that it has no responsibility to tell candidates how many signatures are required. Judge Katz ultimately found that the Hudson County Clerk’s office notification of the inaccurate number of signatures required on the Petition to candidate Patricia Waters saved the day for the Hudson County Clerk’s office. That fact does not exist in the Harrison ballot case.  

Hudson County Division of Elections Failed Its Mission

The statements made by the Hudson County Clerk’s staff and its counsel of “it’s not the responsibility of the clerk’s office” to tell candidates how many signatures are required do not hold any water.  The Hudson County Clerk’s office Division of Elections exists to provide accurate information to the public, and having failed in that endeavor should not be making statements such as “it’s not the responsibility of the clerk’s office” to try to cover up their mistake.

Hudson County Clerk E. Junior Maldonado, who was on the email chain that communicated false/inaccurate information should have caught the error right away but having missed the error should have alerted everyone who pulled a Petition to run for office in Harrison about the error and should have immediately emailed the person who could have written an article on YourHarrison.com making everyone aware of the false/inaccurate information on the number of signatures required for the Petition published on their website. The latter did not happen.

Transparency Important In Election Officials

The Ritorto & Verile case is not merely a “you don’t have enough signature case”. County clerks and election divisions are not private law firms, and no one is suggesting that they must provide legal advice to candidates. But there is a clear difference between giving legal advice and providing basic election-administration information. Candidates do not ask the Clerk’s Office for litigation strategy when they ask how many signatures are required. They ask for the basic number necessary to access the ballot. So statements like “it’s not the responsibility of the clerk’s office” to tell candidates how many signatures are required diminish public trust and bring ridicule upon the Hudson County Clerk’s Office, Division of Elections.

Hudson County Clerk’s Office Statement Runs Counter To What It Is Tasked To Do

The Hudson County Clerk’s own public election materials and postings show that the office provides election timelines, candidate petition information, petition notices, and election resources to the public. The Hudson County Clerk website includes an Elections section that lists election timelines, calendars, portals, sample ballots, and petition-related materials. The Clerk’s Office has also posted petition filing notices and instructions for candidates in past election cycles.

That is why the statement that providing signature information is “not the responsibility of the clerk’s office” appears to fly in the face of what voters and candidates reasonably expect from a Division of Elections. The public-facing role of an elections office is to help administer elections, provide accurate filing information, and process candidate petitions fairly.

Being Placed On The Ballot Is The Only Just Verdict

The Harrison cases present an especially troubling situation because the candidates are not claiming that they guessed wrong on their own. They are alleging that they relied on an article whose source was an email that Amber Vargas, the Supervisor of Elections at the Hudson County Clerk, stated false/inaccurate election numbers, and then had their petitions rejected based on higher signature numbers by that same official.

The courts may ultimately decide whether the statutory requirements can be waived, relaxed, or otherwise remedied. In the Waiters case, Superior Court Judge David Katz ruled that the court had no authority to waive the 250-signature requirement, even though the Globe reported that Judge Katz did find that there was some unclear communication from the Hudson County Clerk’s Office to candidate Patricia Waiters.  Ultimately, the Hudson County Clerk’s communication to Candidate Waiters about the correct minimum number of signatures required on the petition saved the day. The easy out, the Hudson County Clerk’s office corrected its error, does not exist in the Harrison case.  There was no communication to the candidates or to the person who inquired and got false / inaccurate information that was published to the public.

Broader Concern Can’t Be Ignored

There is broader public concern that can’t be ignored. If election officials provide petition numbers, those numbers must be accurate. If the office later claims it was not responsible for providing them, then candidates and voters are left in an impossible position: they are expected to comply with election law, but cannot reliably depend on the number of signatures required to have a valid Petition to be placed on the ballot from the very office responsible for receiving, reviewing, and rejecting their petitions.

For Harrison voters, the issue is not just whether Candidates Ritorto or Verile appear on the November ballot. The larger issue is whether the ballot-access process is transparent, consistent, and fair.

False / Inaccurate Signature Requirements Destroy Public Confidence

A candidate should not be told one number before filing and another number after filing. Voters should not lose ballot choices because of misinformation from the election office. And the Hudson County Clerk’s Office should not be able to provide signature numbers in one case while arguing in another that providing those numbers is not its responsibility.

In the Patricia Waiters case, the Court found that there was a miscommunication about the number of signatures required for the General Election, but that the Hudson County Clerk notified Patricia Waiters of the error with plenty of time to correct it and put Waiters on notice that she needed to obtain additional signatures. 

The latter notification, however, was not communicated to Harrison’s Mayoral Candidate Dominic Ritorto and/or 1st Ward Council Candidate Michael Verile.  A crucial fact is that the court may find the Harrison Candidates must be placed on the ballot due to the error; otherwise, residents will be disenfranchised. New Jersey law favors rulings that do not disenfranchise the supporters and candidates they seek to support by signing a Petition.

Hudson County voters deserve a clear public explanation from the Clerk’s Office: does the Division of Elections provide candidates with minimum petition signature requirements or not?

If the answer is yes, those numbers must be correct.

If the answer is no, then the office should stop providing them and clearly tell every candidate where the official calculation can be obtained before petitions are circulated. But then why do we need election officials at County Clerk offices throughout the state? Why would the Hudson County Clerk’s office make such a statement that they don’t provide the number of signatures required for a particular office? Such a statement erodes public confidence in election officials at a time when many are trying to challenge our election process and form of government. The appropriate remedy in this case, under these facts, is placement by the court of Ritorto & Verile as a Mayoral Candidate and Councilperson Candidate.

We encourage you to share your thoughts on the Community Discussion Board after reading this article.

For those not yet registered, participation is free and open to anyone who wants to stay engaged with Harrison’s local events, businesses, and community conversations.  It's a Free Membership. Sign up