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Postal voting: Fraud case in Paterson while national debate continues
What the Paterson voter fraud case means for the national debate about mail-in voting during COVID-19. Moderated by Record columnist Mike Kelly, with Paterson Mayor Andre Sayegh.
Mike Kelly and Sean Oates, NorthJersey.com
PATERSON – After more than six weeks, the New Jersey Attorney General’s office has made no progress in reviewing City Councilman Michael Jackson’s cellphone as part of its election fraud case against the city official.
In a virtual court session Monday afternoon, Assistant Attorney General Frank Valdinoto said state investigators were still waiting to gain access to a state-of-the-art crime lab so they could examine Jackson’s phone “in a controlled environment.”
Valdinoto told Supreme Court Justice Sohail Mohammed that there was a long line to use the lab and said he would ask that that review be moved up. It’s not clear why state officials hadn’t already made the high-profile election case a priority.
Tuesday marks the fourth anniversary since the Attorney General’s Office first charged Jackson and current Paterson City Council President Alex Mendez with election fraud in separate criminal complaints.
Jackson was not happy about the recent delay and expressed his frustration to the judge at the end of Monday’s hearing.
“You’re talking about my case,” Jackson explained. “It’s been going on for four years now, four years, and I’m still waiting.”
Mohammed informed Jackson that his attorney, Scott Finckenauer, had already agreed to hold the next court session on August 19 and suggested the council speak with his attorney.
“It’s crazy,” Jackson said in a subsequent phone interview with Paterson Press. “It just goes on and on and on and on.”
Jackson is Mayor Andre Sayegh’s harshest critic on the City Council.
Jackson’s cell phone was confiscated in 2023
According to court records, the Attorney General’s Office seized Jackson’s cellphone in the spring of 2023 as part of an investigation into possible witness tampering related to the original 2020 criminal complaint against the councilman.
Jackson had refused to hand over the passcode that would have given investigators access to the contents of his phone, but lost a legal battle over it that resulted in several appeals.
During a court hearing on May 15, Mohammed confirmed that Jackson had given the state three possible passwords. Jackson told Paterson Press at the time that he had handed over the passwords several weeks earlier.
The state filed charges against Jackson over the May 2020 Paterson election – an all-mail election in the early days of the COVID pandemic. The attorney general’s office accused Jackson of submitting mail-in ballots for voters who did not fill them out themselves and of violating a law that prohibits candidates from processing mail-in ballots.
Jackson must now complete a full, contentious four-year term as alderman, which ends June 30. Jackson was re-elected in May, despite Sayegh’s unsuccessful efforts to help one of his allies win a seat on the 1st District aldermanic council.
Meanwhile, Mendez’s next court hearing in the election fraud case is scheduled for August 5.
