Matawan Republican Party Sues Monmouth County Board Of Elections, Alleging Voter Abnormalities

MATAWAN, NJ — The Matawan Republican Organization and Patricia Roinestad and Raymond Stuetz, the two Republicans who ran for Matawan town Council in November and lost, sued the Monmouth County Board of Elections in a lawsuit filed Dec. 4.

The Republicans argue the 2025 Matawan town election was extremely close — a mere 29-vote difference between the winning and losing candidates — and there may have been voter irregularities in the ballots cast. The Matawan Republican Organization said they found a total of 43 abnormalities in votes cast, which is enough to alter the election outcome, they argued.

However, their lawsuit was dismissed Wednesday in Monmouth County Superior Court. A Superior Court judge dismissed the suit on procedural grounds, saying Rory Wells, the lawyer Matawan Republicans hired to file the suit, did not obtain enough signatures for one of the petitions.

Anissa Esposito, chairwoman of the Matawan Republican Organization, said her attorney "completely dropped the ball on this. I was completely blindsided and shocked (when it was dismissed in court today). I've spent three and a half weeks of research on this, and it started because there was initially a 17-vote difference in this election. I have the voter discrepancies to show the judge. But we didn't even get to discovery because our attorney messed up his filing. I am just livid."

Wells did not return a request for comment Wednesday.

Some of the ballot irregularities Esposito said she found included a dead person whose name was on a vote-by-mail ballot, and people who moved to Spring Lake and Howell who voted in this year's Matawan election.

"It wasn't like this was done lightly," said Esposito. "I am not an election denier or a conspiracy theorist on voter fraud. But there are clearly issues with some of these votes. We are 99 percent sure we have votes cast that shouldn't have been cast. This was not done to be malicious or a sore loser. But we did find these anomalies. Don't we want the process to be looked at and have a judge determine whether these votes are illegal or not?"

Deana Gunn, Matawan town Council president and chair of the Matawan Democratic Party, said the lawsuit was "frivolous and ridiculous and I'm glad it was dismissed."

Both Gunn and Esposito were in court Wednesday to hear the judge's decision.

The 2025 Matawan election was extremely close: A total of 7,321 votes were cast. Taraszkiewicz received 1,894 votes and DeZaio 1,834, and Roinestad got 1,805 and Stuetz 1,777.

Hence, Roinestad only lost to DeZaio by a mere 29 votes.

The lawsuit asked the courts to do a "complete and thorough review of voting records" in the 2025 Matawan election, to ensure illegal votes were not received, and that legal votes were not rejected at the polls.

The Republicans' lawsuit sued Monmouth County Superintendent of Elections Christopher Siciliano, Matawan town clerk Karen Wynne, New Jersey Secretary of State Tahesa Way and Megan Taraszkiewicz and Daniel DeZaio, the two Democrats who won election to the Matawan Council this year.

Their lawsuit asked for many things, including:

• It sought to block the NJ Secretary of State from certifying the vote.
• It sought to block Taraszkiewicz and DeZaio from being sworn into their Council seats in January.
• And they also asked Siciliano to hold a new Matawan town election as soon as possible.

What do Matawan Republicans do now that their lawsuit was dismissed? Esposito said she may appeal the judge's decision, or file a new lawsuit, but she needs to "find a new attorney first."

"It certainly bothers me because I know there were votes cast that should not have been. But we did not even get to present that in discovery. That's where we are now: 29 votes apart and the lawsuit dismissed due to attorney error."