WASHINGTON (REUTERS) — Republicans appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court Thursday, challenging a ruling that allows Democrats to replace scandal-tainted Sen. Robert Torricelli with a well-known political veteran on New Jersey ballots for the Nov. 5 election.
The appeal by the state Republican Party and Republican Senate candidate Douglas Forrester came a day after the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled the ballots must include the name of former Sen. Frank Lautenberg in place of Torricelli, who has withdrawn.
The case could help determine whether Democrats retain control of the U.S. Senate and came nearly two years after the nation’s highest court decided the Florida election dispute, effectively giving Republican George W. Bush the presidency.
At a news conference on Capitol Hill, before submitting the appeal to the high court, about a dozen senators said the U.S. Constitution gives state legislatures the power to set the time, place and manner of elections.
Alex Vogel, general counsel for the Senate Republican campaign committee, said the emergency appeal seeks expedited review, and a stay of the New Jersey court decision.
Sen. Bill Frist, a Republican from Tennessee and the head of the committee, told reporters, “What the Democrats have done is clearly illegal. They are attempting to steal an election they could not win.”
Frist and other senators said the New Jersey court decision sets a dangerous precedent and would allow other candidates to swap out just before an election if polls show they were headed for defeat.
Sen. Jim Bunning, a Republican from Kentucky, said, “I pray to God that the United States Supreme Court will right the wrong that has been perpetuated on us by the Supreme Court of New Jersey.”
The appeal argues that a stay would be “the only means of protecting the integrity of the federal election process.”
The appeal says numerous absentee ballots already have been mailed overseas and some absentee ballots have been cast.
The appeal argues that constitutional due process rights prohibit “the disenfranchisement of American military personnel and citizens by replacing candidates on the ballot after these citizens have already cast their vote.”
It was not known when the court, which officially opens its new term on Monday after its three-month summer recess, would act on the appeal.
