Attorney General Matthew Platkin announced that his office will not defend the state’s primary ballot design, calling it “unconstitutional.”
This decision comes in response to a lawsuit filed by Rep. Andy Kim and two House candidates who are challenging the preferential treatment given to county-backed candidates on the ballots to strip that advantage from First Lady Tammy Murphy.
The wife of multi-millionaire Governor Phil Murphy, who used his Wall Street fortune to buy up endorsements from all 21 county political machines in his first primary campaign, has corralled power brokers that will rely on continued patronage from Trenton through the end of 2025.
Endorsed candidates benefit from this system because voters naturally go down the line as they cast their ballot and visually miss other candidates’ names, which are often spread out and placed in hard-to-spot locations on the ballot.
Kim has won support in nine counties that hold conventions while Murphy was backed in a handful of over places with an open process and all of those where autocratic party bosses decide.
Murphy has been endorsed by several prominent New Jersey Democrats, including Reps. Frank Pallone Jr., Donald Norcross, Bill Pascrell Jr. and Donald M. Payne Jr., as well as the mayor of Atlantic City, Marty Small Sr.
The wealthy contenders are overshadowing two progressive candidates running in the Democratic primary for Senate, 2020 US Senate contender Larry Hamm and labor advocate Paricia Campos-Medina.
Federal Election Commission reports show Murphy had raised $3.2 million, Kim had collected $3.8 million and each of them had roughly $2.7 million in cash on hand as of December 31. Campos-Medina declared her candidacy after the year-end filing deadline and Hamm’s disclosure showed he had raised only $12,187, which is more than twice as much as the progressive challenger who took nearly four of ten votes away from Senator Robert Menendez in the 2018 Democratic primary.
While the money behind the respective campaigns should inform voters about whose interests each candidate will serve if elected, Campos-Medina and Hamm not only suffer a financial disadvantage but are also excluded from debates and much of the news coverage of the campaign.
The primary ballots in New Jersey have long been criticized for their unique design, which allows parties to place their endorsed candidates in a prominent section called “the line,” while non-endorsed candidates are listed elsewhere on the ballot. This system has been accused of giving an unfair advantage to establishment-backed candidates and marginalizing others.
Platkin’s decision not to defend the ballot design is seen as a significant development in the ongoing efforts to bring fairness and equality to the state’s electoral process. The move could potentially level the playing field for candidates who are not supported by party leaders.
Platkin said in a letter to U.S. District Judge Zahid Quraishi on Sunday that he believes the county line system undermines the “democratic process” of selecting candidates in the primary.
New Jersey’s unique ballot-design process violates the U.S. Constitution by favoring candidates “who happen to be endorsed by a faction of a party’s leadership” in ways that “cynically” manipulate voters and are “anathema to fair elections.”
The attorney general called that feature “unconstitutional” in a letter Sunday to U.S. District Judge Zahid N. Quraishi that states: “This is an exceptional case, justifying the Attorney General’s exceptionally rare decision not to defend the constitutionality of the challenged statutes.”
The result of the ballot design is that “it is often impossible for unbracketed, non-pivot office candidates to secure an earlier position on the ballot compared to their bracketed competitors,” Platkin’s letter says. “These features of grid balloting and bracketing also have allowed unbracketed candidates to be placed at the end of a ballot with multiple blank spaces separating them from their competitors, which creates the phenomenon known as ‘ballot Siberia.’”
Julia Sass Rubin, a professor at Rutgers University and an advocate for ballot reform, described the decision as “an earthquake” that could lead to a fundamental shift in New Jersey’s political landscape.
Rubin calculated that the county line is worth 35 percentage points for a candidate, a factor enhancing the influence of power brokers in maintaining the control of political machines.
Rubin asserts that ending this system of ballot rigging could open doors for more diverse and independent-minded candidates.
The lawsuit filed by Kim is part of a broader longtime effort by activists and organizations like Better Ballots NJ to eliminate the county line and redesign the ballots to ensure fair competition.
A separate legal action has been filed by Christine Conforti, Arati Kreibach, Mico Lucide, Joseph Marchica, Kevin Mcmillan, Zinovia Spezakis and New Jersey Working Families naming county clerks in Monmouth, Ocean, Mercer, Bergen, Atlantic, and Hudson counties as defendants. Discovery in that pending case has been extended until April.
Another challenge to the state’s system of ballot rigging was filed by law professor Eugene Mazo and Lisa McCormick, the grassroots 2018 challenger to Menendez who earned 159,998 votes on a budget of less than $5,000.
Mazo and McCormick brought a challenge that argued under the First Amendment, but after moving through the district and appellate levels, the US Supreme Court declined to hear their case.
The current ballot design has been criticized for violating the Constitution, confusing voters, favoring incumbents, and empowering party bosses at the expense of the electorate.
Platkin’s decision not to defend the ballot design underscores the growing consensus that reforms are needed to create a more transparent and inclusive electoral process in New Jersey. It remains to be seen how this development will impact future elections and the overall political landscape in the state.