A federal appeals court has upheld a lower court ruling that the Democratic Party may not use the “county line” ballot format in the June 4 primary election.
The ruling by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals April 17 rejected a request from the Camden County Democratic Committee to reverse a March 29 decision by U.S. District Court Judge Zahid Quraishi, who ordered county clerks to print “office block” ballots in place of “county line” ballots for the Democratic primary.
“The record before us supports the District Court’s ruling,” the three-judge appeals panel wrote. “It shows that the county line system is discriminatory — it picks winners and punishes those who are not endorsed or, because of their political views, want to disassociate from certain endorsed candidates.
“Those disfavored candidates are put in undesirable ballot positions and, by random coupling, can end up paired with potentially objectionable candidates.”
The lower court ruling did not extend to Republican ballots in the primary because the court did not have before it a complainant challenging those ballots, and it applies only for this June’s primary. The challenge to the Democratic ballots came from Andy Kim (D-3) as part of his campaign for the U.S. Senate seat held by Bob Menendez.
In Cape May County, the new ballots for the primary election are completed and posted to the Cape May County Votes website.
The Democratic ballots are formatted to show all candidates listed under the heading for the office they are seeking. The Republican ballots list all candidates who have received the endorsement of the Cape May County Regular Republican Organization in one column.
As the struggle over the county line format claimed center stage, some Trenton legislators said it is time to bring rank-choice voting to New Jersey local and school board elections. State Sen. Andrew Zwicker (D-Middlesex) sees this period of change in the state’s ballot format as the perfect time to consider rank-choice voting and “do it together.”
Zwicker is a chief sponsor of a bill that would allow rank-choice voting in municipal and school board elections if the town’s voters approve that system via a referendum. State elections officials would have the burden to adopt rules and regulations that would govern such elections. The bill was introduced on Jan. 9 and referred to a committee.
In rank-choice voting, voters rank multiple candidates for the same position from first to last. If no candidate receives a majority of first-preference votes, rules would determine which candidates are eliminated and how their votes are then distributed to the remaining candidates. The process continues until a winner is identified.
Contact the reporter, Vince Conti, at vconti@cmcherald.com.
