ebuffed by their own top state court, New Jersey Republicans appealed to the United States Supreme Court today to overturn a ruling that allowed Democrats to replace Senator Robert G. Torricelli's name on the Nov. 5 ballot.
Senator William Frist of Tennessee, chairman of the Senate Republican campaign committee, delivered the request by hand to the Supreme Court this morning.
The New Jersey Supreme Court cleared the way on Wednesday for former Senator Frank R. Lautenberg to enter the race in place of Mr. Torricelli, who abruptly quit on Monday after a campaign dominated by questions about his ethics.
"It is clear that the New Jersey Supreme Court overstepped their authority, overriding the will of the people," Mr. Frist said after delivering the paperwork. "The change and switch on the ballot is illegal."
There was no immediate word on whether the high court would address the case.
Mr. Torricelli was trailing the Republican candidate, Douglas R. Forrester, by double digits in public opinion polls when he bowed out 36 days before the vote.
"If the lower court ruling is allowed to stand, political parties will be encouraged to withdraw losing candidates on the eve of election, replacing them with candidates who have not gone through the rigors of the nomination process in hopes of snatching victory from the jaws of defeat," the Republicans' filing said.
A lawyer for the Republican committee, Alex Vogel, said earlier that he was confident the court would agree to hear the case.
Mr. Vogel said the petition to the court would cite a provision of the Constitution that says "the time, place and manner of holding elections for senators and representatives" is decided by the state legislature.
"The Constitution doesn't give the courts the authority to make these decisions," he said, adding, "Article 1, Section 4 is very clear on this issue."
A less optimistic view of the Republicans' chances with the Supreme Court, however, was offered today by Richard J. Perr, who teaches election and political campaign law at Rutgers School of Law in Camden, N.J.
He did not rule out the court's agreeing to hear the case. But he said it would not be "so surprising if they decided not to take the case," which the Constitution makes clear "is almost entirely a state issue."
Even if it did hear the case, Mr. Perr added, "it would be very unusual for the United States Supreme Court to overrule a state supreme court on a question of purely state law."
Mr. Perr said the New Jersey Supreme Court was simply fulfilling its role of interpreting existing state law.
Mr. Vogel said he expected the court's agreement to hear the case within a day or two. A decision could come two or three days after that, he said.
If the justices agreed with the Republicans' position, the election would go ahead as originally planned, with Mr. Torricelli's name on the ballot, Mr. Vogel said.
Mr. Torricelli's decision to quit was made after consultations with top Democrats in Washington who feared that a loss in New Jersey, in the face of many other tight races across the country, might determine control of the Senate, where the Democrats now hold a one-vote majority.
Republicans say New Jersey law bars replacement of candidates if fewer than 51 days are left before the election. They argued in court that as of Wednesday only 34 days remained until voting time and said that switching candidates would nullify the voting rights of some military servicemen who had already mailed in absentee ballots.
But the seven justices — four Democrats, two Republicans and an independent — noted that New Jersey law does not specifically prohibit a change of candidates within 51 days of the election and ordered the printing of new ballots, to be delivered to eligible absentee voters.
Mr. Vogel said a separate lawsuit would be filed in Federal District Court in New Jersey on behalf of overseas military personnel who have requested absentee ballots.
"Federal law requires they should already have gone out," Mr. Vogel said, adding that the New Jersey court ruling is unclear about when these ballots would eventually be distributed.
He said the Republicans would ask the Justice Department to "force New Jersey to mail the ballots immediately."
Mr. Lautenberg, 78, who was chosen by party leaders to replace Mr. Torricelli, was expected to go to Washington today to meet with the Senate majority leader, Tom Daschle of South Dakota.
Wednesday's court decision was announced just minutes before Mr. Lautenberg held his first campaign rally at the Trenton War Memorial.
"Thank you very much," Mr. Lautenberg, who served three terms in the Senate but decided not to run again in 2000, told a raucous crowd of about 200 union leaders and Democratic Party officials. "Frank wants you!"
"The enthusiasm of this crowd is created by the fact that they tried to take away our rights, to smother our choice at the voting booth," he added.
Mr. Forrester said he would continue to campaign on the message that New Jersey is bottom of the list in receiving federal dollars and that the state needs help to clean its polluted environmental sites.
"We should not be last as we have been for years and years and Frank Lautenberg was part of that," Mr. Forrester said.