The Assembly State and Local Government Committee will discuss a proposal to rotate candidate names on the primary election ballot on Tuesday, but no vote is scheduled.
Assemblyman Michael Venezia (D-Bloomfield) introduced a bill on Monday that would allow county and municipal clerks to implement ballot rotation in primary elections, provided that local party organizations and election officials mutually agree to adopt the system.
Under current law, ballot positions in primary elections are determined through a public drawing. Venezia’s plan would retain that system while permitting election officials to rotate candidates’ names after the drawing, ensuring that each candidate appears in every ballot position before approximately the same number of voters.
It’s unlikely that a new ballot design plan will come before the legislature adjourns for the summer, but the move to schedule a quick committee hearing signals more than a passing interest in the bill.
The legislation comes two years after U.S. District Court Judge Zahid Quraishi demolished New Jersey’s traditional county-line ballot system and one year after lawmakers enacted extensive reforms that adopted 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.
But the last two primary elections – the ones without the line – showed a new form of advantageous ballot positions: favorable placement. Candidates with the first ballot position in multi-candidate primaries prevailed in Mercer, Essex, and Cumberland county races, and in the Republican primary for U.S. Senate.
The committee chairman is Robert Karabinchak (D-Edison). The panel has five Democrats and two Republicans.
