Apr 10, 2023
When I worked for the New Jersey Attorney General, I spent one day each year enforcing election laws. This easy assignment entailed waiting in the county courthouse for those turned away from the polls to seek judicial authorization to vote by providing evidence that they met State voting standards. I, and a small team of colleagues, spent chunks of each election day reading documents from our existing cases while we awaited intermittent five-minute court hearings. We also chatted with election officials-who did not ooze bipartisanism or integrity-and with police assigned to the courthouse. A chunky cop, around 50, with a graying blonde buzzcut assigned to New Brunswick on one election day told me and the other attorneys that he was about to retire. Seated and smiling, he boasted that he had spent the past three years very actively patrolling and ticketing in that college town. He explained that his pension would be based on his final three years of wages and that, by working abundant