Monday opened the last month of New Jersey's local money season: new 29-day reports hit ELEC's system while decades of older filings stay offline under Daniel's Law, with the statute's fate heading back to federal court.

New Jersey's local candidates opened the final stretch of pre-election financial filings on Monday, and by 7:00 p.m. the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission had begun posting them online. The filings come from candidates for municipal office, school board, fire districts and county government, and they cover money raised and spent from June 20 through October 2.

Every candidate committee in a November 3 local race owed the commission a 29-day pre-election report by Monday's deadline. Reports filed by 5:00 p.m. went up at 7:00 p.m.; later filings post afterward. No state offices are on the ballot this year, as New Jersey elects its legislature in odd-numbered years, and state seats return in 2027. Some races show no full report at all: school board candidates who raise and spend nothing are not required to file even the initial registration form other committees must file, and candidates spending $6,900 or less can file a short sworn statement instead of the full report, according to ELEC's candidate guidance.

Daniel's Law pulled decades of reports offline in August

New Jersey enacted Daniel's Law in 2020, after a gunman went to the home of U.S. District Judge Esther Salas, killed her son Daniel Anderl and left her husband Mark Anderl seriously wounded. The law carries the son's name and protects the home addresses and other personal details of judges, prosecutors, law enforcement officers, child protective investigators and their immediate families. The New Jersey Supreme Court's opinion in Atlas Data Privacy Corp. v. We Inform, a suit by a claim-assignment firm against data brokers over the statute, recounts covered officers who "were stalked at their homes or received threats of violence."

Amendments to the law in 2023 let covered persons assign their claims to third parties and made damages mandatory in successful suits. Atlas has filed hundreds of lawsuits on assigned claims for police officers and other covered officials, according to New Jersey Monitor reporting. A federal district court upheld the law in 2024, but by interpreting it to require proof of negligence. The Third Circuit, uncertain of the law's constitutionality, asked the New Jersey Supreme Court to settle what the statute requires, the standard move when a federal case turns on state law. On August 12, 2026, the court answered: the law "contains no mental state requirement" for claims seeking actual damages, and the statute sets a floor of $1,000 per violation, so a plaintiff no longer needs to prove any state of mind to reach that minimum.

ELEC announced the restriction at a commission meeting six days later, describing it as covering "certain pre-2021 campaign-finance reports" and citing the ruling. Campaign reports itemize contributors' names and addresses, and covered persons donate like anyone else, leaving their addresses in decades of filings; ELEC says it is scrubbing covered information from the records. "ELEC is, and must remain, a disclosure agency," the statement reads. The older records "have not been sealed, destroyed, or removed from public access" and remain available through records requests, including under the Open Public Records Act. ELEC's candidate compliance manual describes a public records room at its Trenton office and free printing for the first 50 pages. The commission calls the restriction "temporary, not a permanent retreat from public access" and said in August that it hopes to finish the scrub within a year.

ELEC posts the restriction on its filing-search system: "Pre-2021 reports are not available for online viewing or download," the notice reads, directing users to the contribution and expenditure tools and listing the phone number for the agency's compliance office. The reports are offline; ELEC's notice says contribution and expenditure information from the older filings may still be searchable through the tools.

In the Legislature, Senator Gordon Johnson (D, 37th District) and Senator Nilsa Cruz-Perez (D, 5th District) introduced a fix on November 13, 2025, barring covered persons from signing their claims over to companies that sue on their behalf and making damages discretionary. Johnson called the statute "broken" and said the amendments "will fix it," but the bill never advanced and died when the legislative session ended in January. Bills now pending would widen the law's coverage: S2783 and A4083 would add legislators and court administrators to the protected list, and S4586, introduced September 28, would extend it to out-of-state officials such as police and judges, according to New Jersey Monitor and Politico Pro reporting. Senator Joseph Cryan (D, 20th District), who sponsored the 2023 amendments, told New Jersey Monitor that removing third-party standing for covered persons "would stifle enforcement."

The fight over whether the law survives a First Amendment challenge is back before the Third Circuit panel that heard argument in 2025, and the data brokers told the court this week that the strict-liability ruling strengthened their case for striking the law down, according to Law360 reporting. The American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey argued as a friend of the court that the law attaches liability without any mental state but should be construed with a fault requirement "higher than negligence" to survive a legal challenge.

The ballot indicates which system holds the records

County clerks post sample ballots ahead of elections, and a voter's sample ballot settles the first question: whether November 3 carries any local race.

Candidates in November's local races file with ELEC. The commission's official filing-report search takes a candidate's name or a committee's name, with filters for office, party, election type and year; opening the result pulls up the committee's filed report for the period, which itemizes contributors of more than $200 with their employers and occupations, lists spending and shows cash on hand. Reports filed after 5:00 p.m. Monday post later, so readers who come up empty on Tuesday morning should search again that afternoon. A broader question, such as tracing every donor from one town or every committee one executive gave to, runs through the commission's separate contribution and expenditure tools, which filter across filings by contributor name, employer, occupation and date range.

Federal candidates file with the Federal Election Commission. Every New Jersey voter votes in two federal contests. Cory Booker seeks re-election to the U.S. Senate, and each voter's ballot carries one of the state's twelve House races. For most federal candidates, the newest data on file runs only through June 30; the July-through-September reports come due October 15, and pre-general reports, with books closed October 14, arrive October 22, according to the FEC's published calendar.

ELEC's 11-day reports are due October 23 and will be disclosed that evening. Federal quarterly reports arrive October 15 and pre-general reports October 22. Election Day is November 3.

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Sources

• Atlas Data Privacy Corp. v. We Inform, LLC, 758 F. Supp. 3d 322 (D.N.J. 2024)

• Atlas Data Privacy Corp. v. We Inform, LLC, New Jersey Supreme Court, A-8-25 (August 12, 2026)

• Federal Election Commission, "October 2026 reporting reminder" (September 29, 2026)

• Federal Election Commission, "Cory Booker for Senate" committee filings and Statement of Candidacy (accessed October 5, 2026)

• New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission, "2026 Reporting Dates" (accessed October 5, 2026)

• New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission, Candidate Compliance Manual, "Public Inspection of Documents" (accessed October 5, 2026)

• New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission, "Commission Statement on Daniel's Law and Temporary Access Procedures for Legacy Campaign-Finance Records" (August 18, 2026)

• New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission, "Disclosure Dates" (accessed October 5, 2026)

• New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission, ELECtronic, Issue 192 (January 22, 2026)

• New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission, "Frequently Asked Questions — Candidates" (accessed October 5, 2026)

• New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission, Reports and Data Search system notice (accessed October 5, 2026)

• New Jersey Legislature, Bill No. A4083 (introduced February 19, 2026)

• New Jersey Legislature, Bill No. S2783 (introduced January 13, 2026)

• New Jersey Legislature, Bill No. S4586 (introduced September 28, 2026)

• David Wildstein, New Jersey Globe, "ELEC defends removal of decades of campaign finance reports from website" (August 18, 2026)

• Insider NJ, "Sen. Johnson Introduces 'Protect Daniel's Law Act' to Safeguard Protections for NJ Judges, Law Enforcement" (November 13, 2025)

• Law360, "Data Brokers Can't Pause Judicial Privacy Law Fight" (October 5, 2026)

• New Jersey Monitor, "A new bill would make out-of-state police and judges eligible for Daniel's Law protection" (September 30, 2026)

• New Jersey Monitor, "Senators propose new limits on lawsuits under NJ data privacy law" (November 20, 2025)

• Politico Pro, "Influential state senator seeks another expansion of Daniel's Law" (October 1, 2026)

• OSLaw, "Recent Developments in Daniel's Law Could Shape the Future of Data Privacy" (December 30, 2025)

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