Well Doug, the statute appears to say a candidate may be replaced "up to 51 days" before the election. To the extent it prohibits replacement of candidates fewer than 51 days before, it would appear to have been enacted to save the State the cost and bother of printing additional ballots. It would be astonishing if the statute was intended to change the outcome of elections, or to punish parties for the withdrawal of a candidate. The NJ Court ordered the Democratic party to pay the substantial cost of reprinting and distributing ballots. That would appear to satisfy legislative intent.

Statutes are construed in light of legislative intent. The first but not the only, rule of construction is to follow the plain language of the statute. But as an extremely conservative judge has stated, courts depart from "plain language" to avoid absurdity. Green v. Bock Laundry Machine Co. 109 S.Ct. 1981, 1994 (Scalia, J., concurring). The problem with your construction of the statute is that it is absurd. Moreover, the language of this particular statute is not all that plain.

And the "legal realist" school referenced by Attorney Zurofsky includes just about everyone who practices law today, liberal, conservative, and otherwise. Make sense?