Lawmaker proposes rotating candidates on primary election ballots

A newly introduced bill would give county and municipal election officials the option of rotating candidate names on primary election ballots, a move aimed at eliminating any advantage that comes from appearing first on the ballot.

Assemblyman Michael Venezia (D-Bloomfield) introduced legislation on Monday that would permit county clerks and municipal clerks to use a ballot rotation system in primary elections, provided local party organizations and election officials agree to implement it.

The proposal arrives as political leaders continue dissecting the results of the June 2 primary, where ballot placement emerged as one of the most significant factors in several low-information contests.

Former Tabernacle Deputy Mayor Justin Michael Murphy’s upset victory in the Republican U.S. Senate primary appeared to benefit, at least in part, from favorable ballot placement.  So did county commissioner contests in Mercer, Essex, and Cumberland.

Under current law, ballot positions in primary elections are determined by a public drawing. Venezia’s bill would preserve that process but allow election officials to rotate candidates’ names after the draw so that each candidate appears in each ballot position before roughly the same number of voters.

“The goal of the rotation system is for each candidate to appear substantially an equal number of times at each possible order, from first to last, on the ballot before an equal number of voters,” the bill language states.

But that means political parties can wait to see if they get lucky with the draw before deciding if the

Venezia’s proposed legislation makes no reference to bracketing, the system in which two or more running mates can appear together on the ballot.  Bracketed candidates enter the ballot draw as a package, with their names sharing a slogan and appearing back-to-back.

The legislation comes two years after U.S. District Court Judge Zahid Quraishi dismantled New Jersey’s traditional county-line ballot system and one year after lawmakers enacted sweeping reforms establishing office-block ballots for primary elections.

For decades, New Jersey’s now-defunct county organization line system gave endorsed candidates a significant advantage by grouping them on the ballot while often relegating challengers to less favorable positions.

Last year, a legislative ballot design panel strongly considered a rotation plan advocated by Scott Snyder, a political strategist who works for the Middlesex County Democratic organization, but ultimately opted against it.

Supporters of ballot rotation have argued that candidates listed first on the ballot enjoy a measurable electoral advantage, particularly in low-information races. Similar rotation systems are used in several other states to reduce what election experts call the “primacy effect.”

The measure would permit two different forms of rotation.

One option in the Venezia bill would assign different ballot orders to different election districts. Clerks would use voter-registration data to distribute ballot positions so that no candidate receives a disproportionate share of first-place appearances.  A second option would allow different ballot versions to be presented randomly to individual voters casting ballots by mail, during early voting, or on Election Day.

The proposal would not mandate statewide ballot rotation.

Instead, a county political committee or municipal political committee would have to request the change at least 90 days before a primary election.  The county clerk or municipal clerk would then determine whether the system could be implemented in time for the election and certify its feasibility.  Members of the county board of elections from the affected political party would then have to approve the request unanimously.   If unanimous approval is not obtained, the existing ballot-order system will remain in place.

The bill also requires election officials to publish reports showing how ballot rotations were assigned and how many voters received each ballot version. Those reports would be posted publicly online.

The Secretary of State would be directed to develop statewide standards governing ballot-rotation procedures, including security protocols for any computerized systems used to generate rotating ballot orders.

In his Senate primary, Murphy appeared first on the ballot in eight counties and won six of them, despite raising only about $15,000 and facing opponents with comparable levels of name recognition.  In Gloucester County, where he was listed first and also carried the county GOP endorsement slogan, he won 74% of the vote.

In the recent Mercer primary, incumbents Lucylle Walter and John Cimino bracketed together, in that order, against Nakia White Barr.  White Barr drew the first ballot position, relegating Cimino to third, and went on to defeat him by over 5,000 votes.

Cape May Mayor Zachary Mullock’s victory in the 2nd district Democratic congressional primary was boosted by ballot position, as well as other factors.  Mullock’s wins in Atlantic and Cumberland were likely boosted by his own top ballot position even though another candidate, Tim Alexander, had the party endorsement.