Parsippany Mayor Challenges Election Loss In Court

PARSIPPANY, NJ — In his third attempt to challenge the results of Parsippany’s mayoral election, incumbent James Barberio has taken the matter to court.

In a suit filed with the Superior Court in Morris County on Friday, Barberio and his legal team mention several concerns over what is thought to be an incredibly narrow election.

The Morris County Clerk’s website shows challenger Pulkit Desai with an 80-vote lead ahead of the incumbent, with 50.05 percent of votes against Barberio’s 49.65 percent.

These ratified tallies came after Barberio had an unofficial lead against Pulkit, but do to several provisional and mail-in ballots being counted after Election Day, Desai pulled ahead.

Read More — Parsippany Mayoral Race Swing: Here’s What Happened

The mayor’s petition says that there are discrepancies in the ballot count, adding he and his team are “deeply concerned.”

Barberio’s legal team cites a report showing 3,198 mail-in ballots tallied on Election Day. Later, 3,789 vote-by-mail ballots were reported, despite only 3,565 being recorded by the Nov. 10 deadline, a discrepancy of 224 ballots, according to the suit.

Additionally, Barberio argues that several “illegal and/or improper actions and illegal votes counted” would change the vote total by nearly 800 votes — “substantially greater than the number necessary to change the results of the election.”

Barberio also argues that both human and voting machine errors contributed to the discrepancy.

In total, Barberio’s team says at least 192 illegal votes were improperly counted, and five legal votes were not counted, “indicating a net challenge of at least 197 votes to the current vote total.”

The suit names Desai, Morris County Clerk, Board of Elections, Superintendent of Elections, and the Parsippany Municipal Clerk as respondents.

The trial is scheduled to begin on Jan. 5.

If Barberio’s challenge is upheld, it could mean a recount, or even another election.