The state Assembly’s ballot design panel held its first meeting Tuesday afternoon hearing testimony from experts and county elections officials on best practices and experiences around ballot design.
The Tuesday hearing served mainly as an informational meeting, as legislators asked the experts about ballot policy in New Jersey and across the country, and the hearing was not open for public testimony. Assemblyman Benjie Wimberly (D-Paterson), the committee’s Democratic co-chair, said the panel will announce future hearings soon and hopes to wrap up the panel’s work by next November.
Wendy Underhill, the director of elections and redistricting at the National Conference of State Legislatures, served as an expert on national election practices, and her testimony was followed by six county-level elections officials, including four county clerks.
Assemblyman Al Barlas (R-Cedar Grove), the panel’s Republican co-chair, said the committee will listen to all input to create a “holistic” set of recommendations for future ballot policies. The 12-member committee, composed of six Democrats and six Republicans, will tour the state to hear testimony from the public.
“For all those paying attention to this committee and opining what they think they know, as a co-chair of this committee, here is what I do know — there is no preordained outcome nor is there legislation already drafted sitting in a drawer someplace,” Barlas said in his opening remarks. “We start here today on this process to get as much information as possible so that we can tackle these issues together and come to a bipartisan solution that is best for the voting public and our democracy.”
In attendance for much of the hearing was Rep. Andy Kim (D-Moorestown), whose Senate campaign helped set into motion the chain of events that led to the bipartisan panel. He had hoped to speak during the Tuesday hearing, but said he only learned the hearing was closed as he was driving to Trenton.
Still, Kim plans to speak at a future hearing, and Wimberly assured the congressman he would have time to speak in a public forum.
A lawsuit from Kim and two others led to a federal court order that barred the use of the county line — the primary ballot design system that allows county parties to group their preferred candidates together — in the Democratic primary. Kim shocked the world of New Jersey politics when he defeated First Lady Tammy Murphy in the Democratic primary for senator.
“We got very clear guidance from the court order on what is going to be considered fair, and I want to make sure that whatever comes out from this process is very much in line with that,” Kim said.
Discussion at the hearing was wide-ranging: Legislators asked the experts and officials about ballot readability, office-block ballots, the practices of other states, filing costs, ballot language access, election security, differences between vote by mail and in-person voting, partian vs. nonpartisan elections, voter education and more.
Underhill’s testimony highlighted the uniqueness of New Jersey’s electoral system — she said office-block ballots are used in a “large majority” of states, at least 45 in total. She said some individual jurisdictions in Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Delaware, and New York use county line ballots, she believes New Jersey in the only state to use them statewide.
After the hearing, Wimberly said he was shocked by the variation ballots can have between counties, and also between municipalities in counties.
“I just assuming we were all kind of uniform,” the co-chair said. “But I think after hearings like this, I think people will use best practices.”
Barlas agreed, and said he’s looking forward to hearing from voting machine companies like Dominion and Election Systems & Software.
“I think at the end of the day, what we need to balance is fairness in our elections, and yet practically being able to implement all of that,” Barlas said. “And to me, I think also important is that we should apply these changes, whatever they may be, across the board. There shouldn’t be a hodgepodge patchwork of election laws for this kind of an election, or that kind of an election.”