In re Contest of November 8, 2011 General Election of Office of New Jersey General Assembly

In this case, the majority overturns the outcome of a democratically run election conducted in accordance with a federal court order that went unchallenged for a decade. The 2001 order declared that the one-year residency requirement in the New Jersey Constitution violated the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution. The federal district court later imposed a broad injunction that barred the Attorney General and the Secretary of State from enforcing that restriction.

For about a decade since, the rules have been clear: the residency requirement has not been enforced; no…