Assembly Democrats push back on some ballot design ideas

Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin told Democratic incumbents to put their faces on lawn signs to become more recognizable to voters in a new era of office block ballots with no county lines.

At today’s meeting of the Assembly Democratic caucus, Coughlin sought to explain the proposed ballot design bill to some lawmakers who appeared to struggle with the concept of randomization and rotation of candidate names in the June primary election.

Getting his caucus to understand and support randomization and rotation appears, at least for now, a difficult lift for Coughlin.

Concepts in the draft legislation, including the placement of physical brackets, the labeling of incumbents on the ballot, and a push by Assembly Majority Leader Louis Greenwald to increase the petition signature requirement to make getting on the primary ballot more difficult, faced questions and varying levels of resistance from increasingly skittish Democratic legislators, several participants in the meeting told the New Jersey Globe.

Some Democrats—though clearly a smaller percentage—appear concerned about pressure from progressive activists who don’t like the bill.

The discussion comes ahead of a vote next week to adopt some of the recommendations of the bipartisan Assembly Select Committee on Ballot Design.

“The idea of a world without lines is really starting to set in,” one legislator told the New Jersey Globe.  “And not everyone is ready, especially with (Steve) Fulop out there recruiting people to run in the primary.  People are nervous.”

Fulop, the Jersey City mayor and gubernatorial candidate, has already signed up about two dozen candidates to run on his ballot slogan.   He has pledged to spend $10 million in support of his efforts to help like-minded Assembly candidates win Democratic primaries.

Coughlin has told his caucus to prepare to be financially responsible for their own primaries, with the Democratic Assembly Campaign Committee holding on to its money to protect vulnerable incumbents in the general election.

This could put a financial strain on county organizations forced to bail out incumbents unprepared to pay for a primary, and that could reduce their resources for the general election, including support of down-ballot races.

Several voting machine manufacturers and ballot printers have also identified technical challenges to some of the draft bill’s proposals, including the printing of sample ballots.

Senate President Nicholas Scutari sees no urgency in passing a ballot design bill until the requirements are fully ready to be implemented.