Judge Rejects Elizabeth Councilman's Bid to Remove Independent Rival From Ballot
Independent candidate Janei Holder will stay on the November ballot in Elizabeth's Sixth Ward race.
Elizabeth City Hall.
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Chris Howell | July 1, 2026
For the second time in eight days, a Union County Democratic official failed in court to keep an independent challenger off the ballot.
Superior Court Judge John M. Deitch on Tuesday rejected Elizabeth Sixth Ward Councilman Frank Mazza’s attempt to remove independent candidate Janei Holder from the November ballot. On June 22, Deitch ruled against a similar challenge to independent Rahway mayoral candidate Hope Moran’s ballot petition.
At a June 29 hearing, Holder’s attorney, Alan Levy, said Holder’s “mistake was that she dared to run against the incumbent, against the political machine.” He said the case was meant to warn future challengers that running against an incumbent could mean ending up in court. Levy is also a defendant in a separate defamation lawsuit filed by Rahway political insiders. He has countersued under New Jersey’s anti-SLAPP law, arguing the suit was meant to punish him for public criticism.
Mazza did not go to the hearing. His attorney, Daniel Antonelli, argued the case for him. Antonelli told the court the case was about valid signatures, not politics or intimidation.
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The Central Jerseyan asked Mazza for comment on the ruling, Levy’s remarks, and his absence from the hearing. He had not answered by publication time.
Holder turned in 283 signatures to qualify for the ballot. State law only required 138. The Union County Clerk’s office threw out 107 of her signatures, leaving her with 176 valid signatures, 38 more than she needed.
Mazza’s lawsuit argued that 65 additional signatures should have been thrown out as well. He claimed someone other than the voter wrote the names and addresses on those lines. Deitch ruled that Mazza did not prove his case and dismissed the lawsuit with prejudice, meaning Mazza cannot refile his claim.
Before the ruling, Holder told The Central Jerseyan she was shocked by the forgery accusation. “There is no evidence,” she said. She added that she knows other young professionals who decided not to run for office, worried the government would punish them for it.
The ruling matches what happened in Rahway, where Moran won back her spot on the ballot after a member of the Rahway Democratic Committee challenged her signatures. Levy represented Moran in that case, too.
“This challenge was never about signatures,” Moran said in a statement after her ruling.
Before that hearing, Levy wrote in a Facebook post that he “could not sit idly by at this affront to democracy.”
Editor’s note: The Central Jerseyan is free to read and supported by advertising. If you value this kind of local reporting and want to help sustain it, you can become a citizen supporter on Patreon. Your contribution helps fund continued coverage of local government, schools, and community issues.