SUMMARY
- In each of our twenty one counties, it is the responsibility of the County Clerk to format all of the candidates into an organized ballot for each election.
- There is no statewide design standard, ballots are designed differently in each county even though they may appear similar at first glance.
- Where a candidate’s name appears on a ballot will help determine if they get elected.
- County Clerks are elected and may be Republican, Democrat, Unaffiliated, etc.
- County political/party committee chairpersons endorse candidates for each position and those endorsed candidates all appear in the first row (or column, depending on which county it is) of their ballot.
- All of the candidates in the first row or column of the ballot that have received their party endorsement will have an official party byline listed with their names such as, “Hunterdon County Regular Republican Organization” or “Monmouth County Democrats” making them all appear as a group on the ballot.
- The positioning of these endorsed candidates in a grouped row or column is known as “The County Line”.
- The placement of these endorsed candidates on The County Line is such a strong predictor of who will win that other candidates have been known to drop out of the race when they have failed to achieve an endorsed position on The County Line.
- Not only is The County Line a nearly insurmountable barrier for non-endorsed candidates but the partisan design of the primary ballots has disenfranchised even party-affiliated voters, an overwhelming majority of whom don’t vote in primary elections.
- With primary elections being won by endorsed candidates with the vote of a small percentage of the most partisan voters in districts that are, by design, meant to keep one party or the other firmly in power, it isn’t hard to see that the endorsement of a candidate by the dominant party in each district is the overwhelming decider of who will win each election.
- To quote Dr. Julia Sass Rubin, “New Jersey’s unique primary ballot design and endorsement process give enormous power to political party leaders. It also contributes to a political culture of inside dealing and nepotism, with voters, in most cases, irrelevant to deciding who wins primary elections.”
