The New South Wales state division of the Liberal Party was unable to finalise candidates for many seats by March 2022, due to the alleged failure of Morrison's representative Alex Hawke to attend internal Liberal Party nomination review committee meetings and COVID-19 complications resulting in the inability to elect the state executive in November 2020.[43] This has forced the federal executive of the party to temporarily dissolve the state executive on two occasions (4 to 8 March 27 March to 2 April) under the party constitution, and set up a committee to intervene in preselection processes. The committee was made up of Morrison, New South Wales Premier and state party leader Dominic Perrottet and former party president Chris McDiven.[44][45][46] While the state executive was dissolved, the committee was allowed to "hand-pick" party candidates for the election and bypass local pre-selection ballots. It endorsed the preselection of Hawke, minister Sussan Ley and backbencher Trent Zimmerman in their seats on 6 March, and endorsed candidates on 2 April for nine key seats that the party was trying to win, including Warringah, Hughes, Eden-Monaro and Parramatta.[47][48] Some party members sought to challenge the legitimacy of the committee's preselection in court, which would overturn the preselection of Hawke, Ley, Zimmerman and the other nine candidates.[49] On 5 April, the New South Wales Court of Appeal ruled that the court had no jurisdiction to make decisions relating to the constitutions of political parties, thereby ruling the preselection of the 12 candidates valid.[50] The legal challenge was further brought into High Court of Australia for appeal but was dismissed on 8 April, two days before the election was called.[51]