Earlier this month, the Democratic-controlled Cumberland County Clerk’s office made the surprising move to switch their general election ballots to an office-block format, a major departure from the party-line ballots in use previously. The Cumberland County GOP says not so fast.
In a lawsuit filed over the weekend with the New Jersey Superior Court, the Cumberland GOP organization and three of its countywide candidates allege that the Cumberland County Clerk’s new design violates state laws dictating the design of general election ballots and demands that the county’s ballots be redesigned.
“This is bigger than politics. This is a disaster for Cumberland County voters and taxpayers alike,” said County Commissioners Antonio Romero (R-Vineland) and Joe Sileo (R-Vineland), who are on the ballot for re-election this year. “The decision to unilaterally redraw the ballot confuses voters, disenfranchises candidates, and wastes taxpayer dollars. What the Clerk calls an ‘election education campaign’ is essentially taxpayer funded political campaign mail. It’s shameful and a disgusting political ploy.”
Under the clerk’s new design, candidates are grouped by office with no regard for their party, and random drawings were conducted to determine the candidate order for each office. The results of the drawing were that the top position on the ballot went to third-party candidates for president and U.S. Senate, Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-Dennis) for Congress, and Cumberland County Clerk Celeste Riley – a Democrat who has said she’s recusing herself from election matters this year – for county clerk; Democrats also got first and third position in the race for two county commissioner seats.
According to Deputy County Clerk Sandra Olbrich, the new design was made in order to save taxpayer money and reduce voter confusion.
“The decision was made for several reasons, but the two most significant ones were to keep the ballot to a single page, which simplifies the voting process for residents, and to ensure greater cost efficiency for taxpayers in Cumberland County,” Olbrich said at the August 12 ballot drawing.
But the Cumberland GOP’s lawsuit argues that the design will increase voter confusion, and that it violates a host of state laws governing how ballots must be prepared. Specifically, state law dictates that general election ballots utilize columns to organize candidates by party, and that Democrats and Republicans be given the first two spots before any other candidates are placed on the ballot.
Two other counties, Salem and Sussex, have long used office-block general election ballots, which according to the Cumberland GOP lawsuit would also be illegal. But unlike in Cumberland County, those two counties still give top preference to Democrats and Republicans, with third parties and independents relegated to lower spots for each office.
The lawsuit also alleges that the new design violates the voting rights of New Jersey voters and the associational rights of the candidates themselves.
“As a result of the County Clerk’s unlawful actions, the General Election ballot is confusing, gives inconsistent ballot positions to candidates from the same political parties, increases the likelihood that voters will be misled and confused by the scattered ballot position of candidates from the same political party; increasing the risk that voters’ rights to make rational, informed decisions in the 2024 General Election,” the lawsuit states.
The fight over Cumberland’s ballot design comes after a year of substantial upheaval for New Jersey’s primary ballots. Last winter, Rep. Andy Kim (D-Moorestown) filed a lawsuit challenging New Jersey’s practice of organizing primary ballots based on the endorsements of party organizations – and he won, with a federal judge outlawing the use of party lines in the 2024 Democratic primary.
Ongoing litigation that might apply beyond just this year’s primary, however, is still ongoing. And while Kim’s lawsuit applied only to primary elections, the ballot drama in Cumberland County shows that the debate has bled over into general elections, too.
The Cumberland GOP’s lawsuit echoes many of the arguments made earlier this year in opposition to Kim, focusing on the potential for voter confusion and the protection of candidates’ rights to associate with one another. It remains to be seen whether the state Superior Court will be more amenable to those arguments than U.S. District Judge Zahid Quraishi was.
There’s also still the question of why, exactly, the Cumberland Clerk’s Office – which is affiliated with the South Jersey Democratic organization, one of the chief defenders of the county line system – would choose to make the switch to office-block ballots. According to Cumberland Republicans, it was because Riley wanted to boost her own chances in a tough battle for re-election.
“Voters deserve a County Clerk who will put Cumberland County residents FIRST and not engage in partisan political games,” said County Commissioner Victoria Lods (R-Vineland), the Republican nominee for county clerk. “Celeste Riley’s failure to protect the sanctity of our elections is a direct betrayal of her duties as County Clerk. Even worse, while she actively seeks re-election to this office, Riley’s staff has violated the law to bolster her chances in November.”