Bart Cocchiola, December 14, 2022
We’ve discussed the basics of how government in New Jersey is organized (Politics and Elections, Part 1) and how political parties exist mostly for their own benefit (Politics and Elections, Part 2). We’ve also pointed out how nearly 40% of voters in New Jersey are not affiliated with either major political party but are forced to help pay for primary elections that they can’t vote in.
It is worth mentioning again, after decades of political and election manipulation by our two dominant political parties, New Jersey is second to last in the United States for fiscal stability, an important indicator of our state government’s overall effectiveness. In fact, half of the states ranked in the USnews.com top ten for fiscal stability are also ranked in the top ten overall. As USnews.com puts it, “The fiscal stability of a state’s government is vital to ensuring the success of government-sponsored programs and projects and the quality of life of the state’s residents.”
It won’t be easy but there is a way to fix these problems we’ve identified. Generally speaking, increasing the competitiveness of elections by giving greater opportunities for more candidates and more voters to participate will ensure that more well rounded, less extreme candidates get elected. Candidates of either party that disavow extremist ideas in pursuit of winning over more broad segments of the voter population will have more freedom to work across party lines to solve challenging problems. When effective, bi-partisan solutions can remain in place election after election we save money, our communities and economy can thrive, and the resources of our government can be put to work more effectively. Our taxes might even go down!
So let’s look at how we fix New Jersey!
OPEN PRIMARIES: Closed primary elections need to be replaced with an agreed-upon primary election format that allows unaffiliated and 3rd party voters to participate without the need for them to register with a party. Independent voters are not involved in party activities prior to the election and so the requirement to register on or before the primary election date is unreasonable.
PROHIBIT PARTY ENDORSEMENTS: Regarding party endorsements of primary election candidates, a recent survey by Fairleigh Dickinson University found that greater than 60% of the people polled from either party believe political parties should not endorse candidates! Endorsing candidates contradicts the foundational principle of free and fair elections! Removing endorsements allows each candidate to run for office on their own merits without the need to first empower themselves by becoming a local party insider. More candidates means more ideas being discussed and considered by voters. More ideas means the better ideas will eventually carry into actual policy making New Jersey better.
STANDARD BALLOTS & ELIMINATE THE COUNTY LINE: New Jersey has twenty one county election offices that each do ballot design differently. Voters across New Jersey should all use ballots designed to the same standards and without features that clearly favor candidates or party affiliation. In this analysis by Julia Sass-Rubin, The County Line and endorsements are demonstrated to negatively influence voter behavior; https://www.njpp.org/publications/report/does-the-county-line-matter-an-analysis-of-new-jerseys-2020-primary-election-results/
Learn more about The County Line here; https://www.abolishtheline.org/
Federal lawsuit to abolish The County Line in New Jersey; https://gothamist.com/news/nj-candidates-and-activists-join-federal-lawsuit-take-election-ballot-design-out-party-machines-hands
INDEPENDENT REDISTRICTING: Every ten years, after the US Census has been completed, the forty legislative districts of New Jersey are redesigned to account for changes in population across the state. The procedure for doing this is specified in the New Jersey State Constitution. According to the procedure, a combination of politically appointed members and one independent chairperson are assigned to The New Jersey Redistricting Commission to negotiate new district boundaries that will be used for state elections for the next ten years. Politically appointed members in charge of negotiating these boundaries on behalf of their parties ensure political dominance in most districts by one party or the other which is bad for New Jersey.
The commission to determine legislative district boundaries should be made up of members that are independent of the two major political parties and the emphasis should be placed on creating competitive districts where outcomes are not preordained according to political affiliations.
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All of the solutions suggested above are reasonable and put the interests of New Jersey voters above all else. Each solution helps to return an appropriate amount of control of our political and election practices to voters.
The challenge for us is that we must convince elected officials to do what is best for voters instead of what is best for the party leaders that helped get them elected and who will help them get re-elected! The only way to do this is to organize voters all across the State of New Jersey to support these reforms and to let candidates for office at all levels know that they will not get elected unless they support transforming these democracy reform ideas into new state laws. We have a lot of work to do and we are just getting started!
YOU can help! Please SUBSCRIBE to our email list if you haven’t already and please SHARE these posts and the website address with friends/family/neighbors/etc. Only by building a massive coalition of non-partisan organizations and New Jersey voters will we force these changes to happen!
Thank you for reading!