It may look like a small technical blip. But it takes on larger significance considering well-publicized current and historical instances of alleged “phantom candidates” running in New Jersey elections — candidates who do not appear to actually be running for office but have allegedly been placed on the ballot merely to confuse voters or hurt other candidates by drawing votes away from them. In other words, candidates who are allegedly running in bad faith.

That’s allegedly what’s happening now in South Jersey’s District 4, where a mysterious group called “Jersey Freedom” that was formed in September and lists a PO Box in Queens recently issued mailers attacking Republican state Senate candidate Chris Del Borrello and promoting “conservative” independent candidates Giuseppe Costanzo and Maureen Dukes-Penrose, who are allegedly on the ballot just to siphon votes from Del Borrello.

Costanzo and Dukes-Penrose have not actively campaigned and have mostly refused to answer questions from reporters. Dukes-Penrose in a brief interview told New Jersey Globe that she was encouraged to run by the district’s retiring state senator, Fred Madden (D-Gloucester), which Madden denied. The website also reported that one of the petition’s circulators, Angela McGeehan, is the daughter of former Washington Township Democratic Chair Frank Cianci, a supporter of Del Borrello’s Democratic opponent, Assemblymember Paul Moriarty (D-Gloucester).

Constanzo, Dukes-Penrose and McGeehan all signed affidavits on the petitions stating that they personally circulated the petitions, watched people sign them who they believed were qualified voters, were at least 18 years old and qualified to vote in New Jersey. But they were not required to sign an oath stating they were submitting their petitions in good faith.

It’s not clear whether previous versions of state legislative petitions included the “good faith” oath, and if so when it was removed. The words “good faith” are included, however, in petitions for local candidates available on county websites.

Alicia D’Alessandro, a spokesperson for the Secretary of State’s office, which includes the Division of Elections, noted that the affidavit on the forms does include the numerical citation of the law.

“By signing the affidavit in the petition that cites the statute at the top of the page, the individual is affirming that they are in compliance with the statute,” she said.

Pugach, who typically represents Democratic progressive candidates, disagreed, saying the language of the affidavit is what matters. “That’s all they’re swearing to. They’re not swearing to anything above that on this form. They’re not swearing that they complied with every statute that’s referenced. Come on,” he said.

People who misrepresent their intentions under oath could potentially be charged with “false swearing.” While the words “good faith” are somewhat vague, it could create criminal liability, according to Pugach. But it might be hard to prosecute anyone for that if the words are missing from the oath they sign.

“If that’s an omission on the part of the state to put that on the form, it might be difficult to find criminal liability in that instance,” Pugach said.

Pugach said investigating candidates for false swearing could lead to other avenues for prosecutors to pursue.

“If this wasn’t done in good faith, why was it done? And that’s where I think you can get into the criminal aspects of this. Is someone pressuring them to do that, is someone offering them something in exchange?” he said.

Republican election attorney Mark Sheridan also said that the forms should include the “good faith” oath. “The fact that the Secretary of State’s Office doesn’t have this on the petition just shows how incompetent they are,” Sheridan said.

Nevertheless, Sheridan said that people who file petitions in bad faith could still be prosecuted, even if it wasn’t explicitly laid out in the oath. “When you sign that document, by law you are certifying you are doing it in good faith. Whether it says it or not. The statute says any petition signed by a candidate will be signed in good faith,” he said.

A third election attorney, Jack Carbone — who has represented South Jersey Democrats before — said the words “good faith” are too vague to base a prosecution on. “If they’re real people and registered voters and they consent to run, they’re not ghost candiates,” Carbone said.

New Jersey’s election law includes several criminal penalties related to tampering with petitions, and it allows people to challenge the results of an election “when a petition for nomination is not filed in good faith” or if an affidavit “is false or defective.”

Sheridan said that if Moriarty or one of his Assembly running mates narrowly wins the state election and Costanzo or Dukes-Penrose drew enough votes to have potentially made the difference, Republicans might have a case to overturn the results. And both he and Carbone noted there is a state law that allows citizens to hire attorneys to assist county prosecutors in election investigations, which prosecutors would not be allowed to automatically dismiss.

Meanwhile, the Republican candidates targeted by the mailers are pursuing other legal avenues. Del Borrello and Assembly running mates Matthew Walker and Amanda Esposito wrote letters to U.S. Attorney Philip Sellinger, New Jersey Attorney General Matt Platkin and the Election Law Enforcement Commission requesting they investigate whether Jersey Freedom illegally coordinated with Democrats “to recruit Ms. Penrose and Mr. Constanzo into the race, and are now in the process of making unlawful campaign expenditures that could cause a judge to set aside the election due to illegal interference.”

The Costanzo and Dukes-Penrose candidacies are just the latest example of alleged phantom candidates in South Jersey with ties to local Democrats.

In 2019, half a dozen candidates for the Democratic Camden County freeholder primary ran who mostly refused to talk to the press, had no campaign websites and in most cases were not registered Democrats until shortly before running. Instead, the candidates, who used slogans like “Real Progressive Democrats for Camden County,” just took up space on the ballot to obscure the candidacies of actual candidates who were challenging those supported by the local Democratic machine.

In 2010, at the peak of the Tea Party movement, The Courier-Post reported time Camden County Democrats recruited a “tea party” candidate named Peter DeStefano to run as an independent in an attempt to help the late then-freshman U.S. Rep. John Adler by siphoning GOP support away from Republican Jon Runyan’s candidacy. It didn’t work, however, and Runyan defeated Adler. There have been other allegations of phantom candidates in South Jersey over the years, though none as well documented.

“These people can’t plausibly be claiming they’re doing this in good faith. Running as conservatives? Ask them if they know a single tenet of the conservative movement,” Sheridan said of the current candidates. “You’ve allegedly got a state senator convincing somebody through some means, who knows what was promised to those people, to do this. Our elections are not only under attack from outside forces but now allegedly from sitting legislators.”