Judge Michael Stanzione from the Office of Administrative Law this morning heard arguments made by three challengers to the petition signatures of Sue Altman, candidate for Congress in the 12th District.

Eric Salcedo, Jansel Fuentes Jimenez and Liz Rosenberg contended that Altman's signatures contain numerous disqualifying features, including inadequate party affiliation by signers, mismatched addresses, and false names.

Some of the names?

Louie Lunchmeat.

Jesus Christ.

Jeese Owens.

Joe Jackson.

Doctor Brown.

Altman's lead attorney, Brett Pugach, argued that the number of alleged signature offenders does not drop the Democratic Primary candidate below the state's required threshold of 500 signatures. But the complainants, whose legal representation includes Robert Renaud, argue otherwise.

Pugach appealed to Stanzione to eliminate Salcedo's "laundry list" challenge, arguing

woeful deficiency. The judge took a break to examine the motions, as the complainants awaited Stanzione's line by line examination of each of the signatures.

Stanzione returned a short time later and said he disagreed with Pugach.

"I'm going to deny the motions and we're going to move forward with the review and see where the review takes us," said the judge, as he prepared to look at Altman's signatures.

They started with "Louie Lunchmeat."

"We believe it's appropriate and customary that it gets looked up by the Division of Elections.

They couldn't find Louie Lunchmeat in Plainfield.

"I think we'll eliminate number one," said the judge.

The name "Joe Jackson" came up next and the state couldn't find a registered voter at the listed address by that name. The judge initially reserved judgment on that particular name pending further examination. He later dismissed a name from Lumberton. Stanzione proceeded to eliminate numerous challenged names as he waded line-by-line through Altman's signatures.