It may be the beginning of the end for New Jersey’s county line, but it certainly means chaos for NJ voters and a risk that the NJ State Legislature could become as dysfunctional as the U.S.House of Representatives. One thing for sure is that the era of a NJ political party brand and the accountability of political parties in NJ is over.
Self-styled “progressives” in the Democratic Party, aided and abetted by the NJ Attorney General, are doing “high fives” with one another for “fixing” a system that wasn’t broken. Instead of taking their case to NJ Democrats to replace the party leadership through debate and a vote of the majority, they chose to challenge the party leadership through the courts.
New Jersey’s Unique County Line
New Jersey was the only state in the country that organized its primary election ballots by bracketing candidates that had been endorsed by the county parties. The parties’ endorsed candidates for all offices were grouped together on the same column or row. In other states, candidates are grouped by the office they are seeking, with no reference to the party organizations’ preferences.
The most prominent group of candidates on New Jersey’s primary ballots were always the candidates who were bracketedtogether with the same campaign “slogan.” This was referred to as the “county line” or “party line.” Other candidates who did not receive the party’s endorsement and who were not sharing a slogan were placed on other columns or rows, sometimes grouped together and sometimes divided by multiple rows and columns.
Court Grants Preliminary Injunction Banning County Line
Earlier this year, several primary candidates filed a lawsuit against the Clerks for 19 of the 21 counties in New Jersey,challenging the design of primary ballots that use the party line. The Plaintiffs alleged that the ballot design’s “bracketing system” infringed upon their constitutional rights under the First Amendment, specifically, the Right to Vote, Equal Protection, and Freedom of Association, and that it violated the Elections Clause of the U.S. Constitution.
On March 29, 2024, U.S. District Court Judge Zahid Quraishi granted the Plaintiffs’ request for a preliminary injunction. The order mandates the use of office-block ballots, which group candidates by office sought, rather than the party line. It also requires the County Clerks to conduct draws to determine ballot placements for every candidate, regardless of the office sought.
In granting the injunction, Judge Quraishi acknowledged the magnitude of his order. “The integrity of the democratic process for a primary election is at stake and the remedy Plaintiffs are seeking is extraordinary. Mandatory injunctive relief is reserved only for the most unusual cases,” he wrote. “Plaintiffs’ burden on this Motion is therefore particularly heavy. Nevertheless, the Court finds, based on this record, that Plaintiffs have met their burden and that this is the rare instance when mandatory relief is warranted.”
How it worked out?
While there was much speculation that the candidates endorsedby the party leadership in each county might suffer from voter confusion, this did not happen this time. Overall, the election results last week were just about the same as they would have been if Andy Kim had not brought a challenge to the line.
Most political pundits agree, however, that the reason nothing much changed in the June 2024 primary election is that there was no time for more candidates to circulate and file nominating petitions to run. June 2024 was not a crowded ballot.
Going forward, however, this will not likely be the case. NJ does not require many signatures on petitions to run for public office. Future primary election ballots will likely be flooded with candidates and the primary ballot will look more like a ballot for a school board election, with many candidates who are relatively unknown to voters.
Because most county parties rely on an established vetting process, such as screening committees or conventions, the county-line system helped ensure that the strongest possible candidates, and those who generally support the party positionsare selected to represent the party. It also screens out weak candidates, as well as those who have fringe views that do not represent the party position on key issues.
Conversely, when faced with a crowded ballot featuring a random list of names, voters have no way of discerning one candidate from another without considerable pre-election research. While it is optimistic to believe that voters have done their research for every office up for election, this is just not the case, nor will it ever be the case.