Voter ID popular in NJ

Good morning!

A Rutgers-Eagleton poll on Tuesday delivered some good news for New Jersey Republicans who have been itching to bring voter ID to the Garden State.

The poll says large majorities of Republicans, Democrats, and unaffiliated voters back requiring voters to show a driver’s license, ID, or passport to vote in person. The total number in support is 82%. For Republicans, the number is 98% and for Democrats, 66%.

Gov. Mikie Sherrill (D) said a few months ago that she has no problem with voter ID, a comment she made in the immediate aftermath of her revelation that thousands of people who said they are noncitizens were registered to vote after visits to the Motor Vehicle Commission.

“The registration problems of the past few months have given residents a concrete reason to wonder about the rolls, and that shows up directly in what they want done,” said Ashley Koning, director of Rutgers’ Eagleton Center for Public Interest Polling. “Residents who doubt the rolls are nearly unanimous about proof of citizenship. Residents who trust them still support it, just far less emphatically.”

Despite Sherrill’s comments, there does not seem to be any push from the Legislature’s Dem leaders to move ahead with Republicans’ voter ID measures.

Read more from Nikita Biryukov.

Ocean County: The ACLU of New Jersey lost its bid to block a challenge of some Democratic and unaffiliated voters in Bay Head when a judge on Tuesday denied the group’s bid for a restraining order to prevent the Ocean County Board of Elections from forcing those voters to prove their residency in that Ocean County town. The judge said a letter the board’s chair, GOP bigwig George Gilmore, sent to the affected voters asking them to prove their residency was “truthful” and largely a “request for information.”

Schools: A First Amendment case we’ve been watching closely is done, with the School Ethics Commission deciding that an Alloway school board member did not violate ethics rules when she asked residents on Facebook about their thoughts on a potential school tax increase. The board member, Gail Nazarene, was the subject of a complaint by a fellow board member over Nazarene’s Facebook posts. The commission in the past has decided that school board members are not allowed to, say, gripe on Facebook about school overcrowding, but in Nazarene’s case it has decided her free speech rights might be important.  Fancy that!

Great Adventure: Major theme park news down in Jackson, where Great Adventure has shut down Nitro, a 25-year-old roller coaster, as part of Six Flags’ response to the death of a man who was killed when he fell off a roller coaster in Georgia.

Election 2026: Bad news for Rep. Tom Kean Jr. (R), who is in the middle of a tough reelection fight in the 7th District against Democrat Rebecca Bennett: Shane Goldmacher at the NY Times reported Tuesday that two GOP super PACs have cut off financial support for his campaign and one other, citing unnamed sources. The Kean campaign shrugged off the news to Politico New Jersey, saying it remains well-funded and will be on par with Bennett spending in the campaign’s final weeks.

Trenton: Some very funny stuff out of our capitol this week. On Monday, David Wildstein at the New Jersey Globe reported that a group of unnamed people who worked for Assemblywoman Tennille R. McCoy (D-Mercer) allege “a pattern of severe psychological abuse, verbal mistreatment and intimidation.” This morning, Insider NJ ran a non-bylined thing with this headline: “The Real McCoy: The Assemblywoman Who Shows Up, Builds Partnerships, and Delivers for New Jersey Families.”

Courts: Another 13 women have filed a lawsuit alleging they were sexually abused by a Mercer County OBGYN before he lost his license two years ago. At least 45 women total have accused the man, Bruce Pierce, of sexual abuse through a handful of civil lawsuits filed in the past year alone, several of which also blamed the clinic where he worked and entities that oversaw its operations. “We’ve seen in these cases that women complained about Dr. Pierce for years and that these corporate defendants failed to act. Companies operating health systems cannot ignore red flags and put profits over patient safety,” said Jerome “Jerry” Block, the attorney representing plaintiffs in the newest lawsuit.