Topic Category: Democracy and Media

Redistricting Commission Fails to Reflect New Jersey’s Increasing Diversity

Posted on by Brandon McKoy

Democratic and Republican party leaders have made their picks for New Jersey’s Apportionment Commission — the ten-member body tasked with redistricting the state’s 40 legislative districts — and they do not come close to reflecting the true diversity of the Garden State. Of the ten voting members, there are only two women; there are no women of color; and there are no Latino participants. White men are already overrepresented in the New Jersey Legislature, and it’s apparent by these picks that this unfortunate trend will not change anytime soon. This lack of diversity is compounded by the recent passage of Public Question 3 on the November ballot, which will likely delay the implementation of a new legislative district map.

When New Jersey voters marked their ballots on November 3, one of the more important, and undercovered, measures was Public Question 3. The ballot initiative, which was passed with more than 57 percent of the vote, will “postpone the state legislative redistricting process until after the election on November 2, 2021, if the state receives federal census data after February 15, 2021.” While it may be seemingly benign on its face — the justification given is that the Trump administration’s ongoing efforts to sabotage and delay the census will harm the redistricting process — it will ultimately mitigate the political power and representation of New Jersey’s non-white communities who have significantly grown in population over the last decade. By delaying the redistricting process, New Jersey will use the current legislative map for an additional two years, even though it is based on 2010 census data that is woefully out of date and dramatically unrepresentative of New Jersey’s increasing diversity. This issue was so serious that landmark civil rights organizations including the New Jersey Institute of Social Justice and League of Women Voters of New Jersey led campaigns against the measure, urging residents to vote no.

To compile a commission that is unrepresentative of the state, after the passage of such a harmful ballot measure, is simply adding insult to injury. Rather than continuing to cement a process that benefits political insiders — who are overwhelmingly white men — leaders should have taken the opportunity to include community members who could help produce a more democratic and representative outcome. Far too often, our elected leaders express support for racial equity in word, but when it comes time to do so in deed, they fall short. This is, disappointingly, another chapter in that story. 

Police Presence at the Polls Could Suppress Turnout

Posted on by Brandon McKoy

The following testimony, on A4655, was delivered to the Assembly Appropriations Committee on October 26, 2020.

Thank you, Chairman Burzichelli and members of the committee for this opportunity to speak with you today.

My name is Brandon McKoy, I am President of New Jersey Policy Perspective, and I am testifying in support of A4655 to help ensure there is limited police presence at voting locations. The simple fact of that matter is that this year’s elections are incredibly pitched and, as such, have invited significant and drama. Unfortunately, comments and actions by the President and many others at the federal level have telegraphed a serious interest on their part in suppressing the right and ability of citizens to vote. Furthermore, due to excessive police behavior and repeated instances of gross brutality – especially over the course of the past several months and years – the relationship between law enforcement and marginalized communities has eroded significantly. As such, unnecessary police presence at voting locations would at best result in additional stress and anxiety on the part of the voting public as they exercise their rights, and serious suppression and disenfranchisement at worst.

To protect the faith and trust of all people in the voting process, this bill, along with its recent amendments, should receive your support and be passed out of committee.

As New Jerseyans, we don’t need to look very far for instances where police presence at polling locations suppressed the vote. The 1981 gubernatorial election is infamous for the manner in which off-duty officers were sent to predominantly Black and Hispanic areas to intimidate voters. Such a terrible occurrence will forever be a stain on our history, and it represents yet another compelling reason why we must do all we can to prevent a similar scenario from ever happening again. This bill will help ensure such success.

While the President has made awful threats that will likely mobilize some of his supporters to work against basic democratic principles, all of you – as elected officials entrusted to protect the rights and welfare of your constituents and all residents of our great state – have the ability to prevent such terrible outcomes and avoid flirtations with the dangerous and corrupt. Please support A4655 today so that all New Jerseyans can vote with a peaceful mind, not having to worry that they will be targeted simply for exercising their civic duty.

Thank you for continuing to enable remote testimony during these challenging times and for treating the pandemic with the seriousness it deserves while protecting the principles of an open and transparent government. I greatly appreciate your time and consideration, and wish you all a wonderful day.

Does the County Line Matter? An Analysis of New Jersey’s 2020 Primary Election Results

Posted on by Julia Sass Rubin

To read a PDF version of the full report, click here.

This policy brief assesses the impact of New Jersey’s unique primary ballot design, which structures ballots around the county line, on the state’s 2020 primary election outcomes. The brief examines ten primary races – four Democratic and four Republican contests for the U.S. House of Representatives and the Democratic and Republican contests for the U.S. Senate. The results suggest that structuring ballots around the county line impacts election outcomes by steering voters towards specific candidates. The county line also increases voter confusion, contributing to overvotes and undervotes. The impact of the county line appeared to be greatest in races that did not involve an incumbent. Candidates’ share of the vote varied by as much as 50 percentage points, based on whether or not they were on the county line.

Background

New Jersey primary ballots are unlike those of any other state. Other states organize their primary ballots around the electoral position being sought, such as Senator or Governor, with candidates listed beneath or immediately to the right of each electoral position. [1] This makes it easy for voters to determine which candidates are running for each office. In contrast, nineteen of New Jersey’s twenty-one counties organize their primary ballots around a group of candidates endorsed by either the Democratic or Republican Party. These groups of county party endorsed candidates are referred to as the “county line” or the “party line,” because they are presented on the ballot as a vertical or horizontal line of names, with a candidate included for every office. The county line generally receives prime location in one of the first columns or rows on the ballot. Candidates not on the county line are placed in other columns or rows, sometimes far away from the county line candidates.

Figure 1 shows a 2020 New Jersey Democratic primary ballot from Monmouth County. The seven county line candidates are in column one. The remaining six candidates are scattered across the other four, mostly empty, columns. There is no obvious logic as to why each of the non-endorsed candidates is in a particular column. Column two includes a candidate for the U.S. Senate and two candidates for County Freeholder. Column three includes a candidate for President and his delegates. Columns four and five each include a single candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives.

Monmouth 4th District Dem Primary BallotFigure 1: Monmouth County 4th Congressional District 2020 Democratic primary ballot.

This ballot design encourages voters to pick the candidates on the county line because they are easy to find and visually distinct. The county line is further advantaged by the placement of better-known candidates, such as those running for President, U.S. Senator, or Governor, at the top of the line and the inclusion of candidates for most or all of the offices on the ballot.

Designing primary ballots in this way violates important rules of good ballot design. Most critically, spreading candidates across multiple columns or rows and placing extra columns or rows between them, makes it much harder for voters to determine which candidates are running for each office. This results in voters not realizing that some positions are contested or, conversely, disqualifying their vote by mistakenly voting for too many candidates for a given position.[2]

A recent Communications Workers of America (CWA) analysis suggests that the county line has a significant impact on voter behavior. CWA found that no state legislative incumbent on the line had lost a primary election in New Jersey between 2009 and 2018.[3] Although incumbents generally win reelection, that advantage is rarely so absolute. In New York State, for example, twenty-two state legislative incumbents lost primary elections through 2018 and additional ones lost in 2020.

The county line may provide a substantial electoral advantage in congressional elections as well. Only two congressional incumbents have lost a primary in New Jersey in the last fifty years. In both cases, they lost to other incumbents, following redistricting that eliminated one of their districts. And, in both cases, the incumbent who won the primary had also received the party endorsement and the county line in the county that decided the election.[4]

The 2020 primary provides a unique opportunity to evaluate the impact of the county line on election outcomes. Historically, most New Jersey residents have voted on election day, using voting machines. In 2020, with New Jersey an epicenter of the COVID-19 outbreak, Governor Phil Murphy issued an executive order for the primary election to be conducted by mail. Voters also could vote at a limited number of polling places on election day using provisional paper ballots, or, if the voter was disabled, on an ADA-accessible voting machine.

As a result of the Vote-By-Mail directive, voters in three counties that usually vote using a machine ballot that is organized around the county line (Hunterdon, Passaic, and Warren) instead received paper ballots that resembled those used in other states, with candidates listed beneath the position they were seeking. This increased the number of counties using such ballots to five out of twenty-one for the Democratic primary and six out of twenty-one for the Republican primary, creating an opportunity to compare how candidates performed in congressional districts that included those counties.[5]

The 2020 primary also had a large number of contested races. In a few of those races, the county party organizations endorsed and awarded the county line to different candidates. This created an additional opportunity to examine the impact of the county line on electoral outcomes.

Democratic Party Primary Results

In the Democratic primary, four congressional districts and the U.S. Senate race were contested and included some counties that did not structure their primary ballots around a county line or county parties within the congressional district endorsing different candidates.

2nd Congressional District

Amy Kennedy won all eight counties in the 2nd Congressional district. However, Kennedy received a higher percentage of the vote in the three counties where she had the county line or no one had the county line than in the five counties where her opponent Brigid Harrison had the county line (see Figure 2).

Kennedy received 75% of the vote in Atlantic County, where she had the county line, and 50% of the total vote in the five counties where Brigid Harrison had the county line, a difference of 25 percentage points. Kennedy received 67% of the vote in Ocean County, where no candidates were endorsed or awarded the county line, and 63% of the vote in Salem County, where Brigid Harrison had the county party’s endorsement, but the primary ballot is not structured around the county line.

Figure 2: 2nd Congressional District Democratic Primary. Does not include Francis and Turkavage, who received < 3% of the vote.

Figure 2: 2nd Congressional District Democratic Primary. Does not include Francis and Turkavage, who received < 3% of the vote.

This contest highlighted another aspect of how the county line may impact voter behavior. In Atlantic County, the number of valid votes cast for the U.S. Senate was substantially lower than the number cast for President (81%) or the House of Representatives (82%). In every other county, the total votes for U.S. Senate exceeded the number cast for the U.S. House of Representatives and equaled at least 97% of the total votes cast for President.

A likely explanation for Atlantic County’s unusual results is that U.S. Senator Cory Booker, whose reelection was endorsed by all twenty-one county parties, chose not to appear on the county line for the Second Congressional District’s Atlantic and Ocean County ballots. Instead, Booker bracketed with Brigid Harrison, who did not have the county line in either county (see Figures 3 and 4 for Atlantic and Ocean Democratic primary ballots for the 2nd Congressional District). Many Democratic voters, used to marking their ballots for everyone on the county line, may not have realized that the Atlantic County line did not include a candidate for U.S. Senate, or they may not have known that they could vote for candidates who are not on the county line.

2020 Atlantic County Democratic Ballot Congressional District 2Figure 3: Atlantic County 2nd Congressional District 2020 Democratic primary ballot.

Figure 4: Ocean County 2nd Congressional District 2020 Democratic primary ballot.Figure 4: Ocean County 2nd Congressional District 2020 Democratic primary ballot.

Ocean County did not experience a similar drop in votes for U.S. Senate. This may reflect the fact that Ocean County voters had to select candidates off the county line for both the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives races, making the county line less visually dominant on the Ocean County ballot and signaled to voters that voting off the line was a legitimate option. In contrast, Atlantic County voters did not have to vote off the county line for any office except the U.S. Senate.

4th Congressional District

Christine Conforti and Stephanie Schmid split endorsements in the 4th Congressional District. Conforti receiving the party endorsement in Mercer County and Schmid received the party endorsements in Monmouth and Ocean Counties. Mercer County Democratic party bylaws allow all candidates that receive at least 40% of the vote at the party’s endorsement convention to appear on the county line. This resulted in both Conforti and Schmid being included on the Mercer County line. Conforti received a larger percentage of the convention votes and the endorsement, so she was listed first (see Figure 5).

Figure 5: Mercer County 4th Congressional District 2020 Democratic primary ballot.Figure 5: Mercer County 4th Congressional District 2020 Democratic primary ballot.

Conforti won Mercer County, receiving 57% of the vote. Schmid won Monmouth and Ocean Counties, receiving 70% and 77% of the vote, respectively. Conforti received 57% of the vote when she was first on the county line and 21% of the total vote in the two counties where Schmid was on the county line, a difference of 36 percentage points. Schmid received 72% of the total vote in Monmouth and Ocean Counties, where she was the only congressional candidate on the county lines, and 32% in Mercer, where her name appeared below Conforti’s — a difference of 40 percentage points (see Figure 6).

Figure 6: 4th Congressional District Democratic Primary.

Having two candidates on the line in Mercer County also confused voters, leading to a substantial overvote. More than 32% of those who voted in the 4th Congressional District’s Democratic primary for the House of Representatives selected both Conforti and Schmid, resulting in their votes being discarded. Neither Monmouth nor Ocean Counties experienced substantial overvotes, and the number of votes cast for the House of Representatives in both counties closely mirrored those for the U.S. Senate and President. The likely explanation for the Mercer overvotes is that voters, conditioned to select everyone on the county line, marked their ballots for both Conforti and Schmid rather than voting for just one of them, as the ballot instructed them to do.

5th Congressional District

Congressperson Josh Gottheimer was endorsed by all four counties that make up the 5th Congressional District. Gottheimer received 67% of the votes in Bergen County, which structured its ballots around the county line, and 64% of the combined votes in Passaic, Sussex and Warren Counties, which did not use a county line, a difference of 3 percentage points (see Figure 7).

Figure 7: 5th Congressional District Democratic Primary.Figure 7: 5th Congressional District Democratic Primary.

9th Congressional District

Congressperson Bill Pascrell was endorsed by all three counties in the 9th Congressional District. Pascrell received 84% of the vote in Passaic County, which did not use the county line on its ballots, and 78% of the combined vote in Bergen and Hudson Counties, which used the county line (see Figure 8). Pascrell has consistently received a larger share of the vote in Passaic than in Bergen or Hudson Counties since he was first elected to represent the 9th Congressional District, following the 2010 redistricting. Pascrell’s 2020 primary performance is actually the lowest percentage of the Passaic vote that he has received in that decade.[6] It is also the only time during that decade that a majority of Passaic voters did not use a county line ballot.

Figure 8: 9th Congressional District Democratic Primary.

U.S. Senate

Senator Cory Booker was endorsed by all 21 counties in the Democratic U.S. Senate primary. He received 88% of the combined vote in the fourteen counties where he was on the line, 86% of the combined vote in the five counties that did not use a county line, and 85% of the combined vote in the two counties that had a line but Senator Booker chose not to be on it (see Figure 9). Booker’s share of the vote ranged from 85% to 91% when he was on the line and from 84% to 88% when a county did not use a line. In the two counties where Booker chose not to be on the line, he received 81% of the vote in Atlantic County and 87% in Ocean County.

Figure 9: U.S. Senate Democratic Primary.

Republican Primaries

In the Republican primary, four congressional races and the U.S. Senate race were contested and included either counties that did not structure their primary ballots around a county line or county parties within the district endorsing different candidates. Being on the county line was associated with differences of more than ten percentage points in all five races and as much as 50 percentage points in the U.S. Senate race.

2nd Congressional District

In the 2nd Congressional District, Jeff Van Drew won the endorsement and the primary in all eight counties. He received 83% of the total vote in the seven counties that used the county line on their ballots and 70% of the vote in Salem County, which did not use the county line (see Figure 10).

Figure 10: 2nd Congressional District Republican Primary.Figure 10: 2nd Congressional District Republican Primary.

3rd Congressional District

Two candidates vying for the Republican nomination in the 3rd Congressional District split the Republican party endorsements in the counties that make up that district. Kate Gibbs was endorsed and given the line by Burlington County and David Richter was endorsed and given the line by Ocean County. Gibbs received 56% of the vote when she was on the county line and 22% when she was not, for a difference of 34 percentage points.  Richter received 78% of the vote when he was on the county line and 43% when he was not, for a difference of 35 percentage points (see Figure 11).

Figure 11: 3rd Congressional District Republican Primary.Figure 11: 3rd Congressional District Republican Primary.

5th Congressional District

Four candidates competed in the 5th Congressional District, with two splitting the endorsements. John McCann was endorsed and given the county line by Bergen County. Frank Pallotta was endorsed by Passaic, Sussex and Warren Counties, none of which used the county line. McCann won Bergen County, with 45% of the vote, while Pallotta won the three remaining counties, with 62% of the total vote.

McCann received 45% of the vote when he was on the county line and 18% of the total vote when Pallotta was endorsed but there was no county line, for a difference of 27 percentage points. Pallotta received 62% of the total vote when he was endorsed but there was no county line and 41% of the vote when McCann had the county line, for a difference of 21 percentage points.

Figure 12: 5th Congressional District Republican Primary.

7th Congressional District

Three candidates competed in the 7th Congressional District race. Tom Kean Junior received the endorsement of the six counties that make up the district and won all of them. Three of those counties (Essex, Somerset and Union) structured their ballots around the county line and three (Hunterdon, Morris and Warren) did not. Kean received 86% of the total vote in Bergen, Somerset and Union, the three counties for which he had the line. He received 72% of the total vote in Hunterdon, Morris and Warren, the three two counties that did not use the line, for a difference of 14 percentage points.

Figure 13: 7th Congressional District Republican Primary.Figure 13: 7th Congressional District Republican Primary.

U.S. Senate

Five candidates competed for the Republican nomination in the U.S. Senate race, with two of them splitting the endorsements. Hirsh Singh was endorsed by four counties, all of which structured their ballots around the county line. Rikin Mehta was endorsed by seventeen counties, eleven of which structured their primary ballots around a county line.

Singh won the four counties in which he was on the line and Mehta won the eleven counties in which he was on the line. Singh received 73% of the total vote when he was on the county line and 23% when Mehta was on the county line, a difference of 50 percentage points. Mehta received 50% of the total vote when he was on the county line and 9% when Singh was on the county line, a difference of 41 percentage points.

Mehta received 35% of the total vote in the six counties that endorsed him but did not use a county line, a reduction of 15 percentage points relative to his performance on the line. Mehta also lost three of those six counties — losing Salem and Warren to Singh and Passaic to Flanagan.

Figure 14: U.S. Senate Republican Primary.Figure 14: U.S. Senate Republican Primary.

Findings

These ten primary contests differ from each other in the counties they encompass, their ballot designs, and their levels of incumbency. This variability makes it challenging to generalize from any individual contest. However, the data does point to three overarching trends:

Being on the county line appears to provide candidates with an advantage.

Candidates performed better when they were included on the county line than when they were not, in nine of the ten contests. The most substantial difference in performance was in the four contests in which different candidates were on the county line in different counties in the same congressional district (see Figure 15). In those four contests, the average vote margin between appearing on the county line and having your opponent on the county line was 35 percentage points.

The only contest in which a candidate did not perform better when on the county line was the Democratic primary in the ninth Congressional District. In that race, Congressperson Bill Pascrell received a higher percentage of the vote in Passaic County, which did not use a county line ballot, than he did in Bergen and Hudson Counties, which used county line ballots. However, the 84% of the vote that Pascrell received in Passaic County was his worst performance in that County since he began representing the ninth Congressional District in 2012. This is also the only primary during that decade for which the ballots used by the majority of Passaic’s voters were not structured around a county line.

Incumbents appear to receive a smaller advantage from the county line than non-incumbents.

These ten primaries do not allow for a comparison of how incumbents perform on the county line versus non-incumbents on a different county line, as incumbents received all the endorsements for which they were eligible. However, there were four races in which incumbents were on the county line in some counties but not in others, and two such races for non-incumbents. The advantage from being on the county line in those contests was an average of three percentage points for incumbents and fifteen percentage points for non-incumbents.

County line ballots appeared to contribute to voter confusion, resulting in substantial overvotes and undervotes.

This pattern is evident in both the Democratic CD2 primary, in which almost 20% of voters did not cast a vote for the U.S. Senate, and in the Democratic CD4 primary, in which more than 32% of the voters selected too many candidates for the House of Representatives. In both cases, the disenfranchisement of large numbers of voters is likely the result of the county line. In CD2, Cory Booker’s decision to bracket off-line may have led to voters not realizing the county line did not include a Senate candidate or not knowing that they could vote for candidates not on the county line. In CD4, the inclusion of two candidates for the House of Representatives on the county line led to almost a third of those who voted selecting both candidates and disqualifying their votes. These examples strongly suggest that New Jersey primary voters are conditioned to vote the county line and highlight how powerful the county line is in shaping voter behavior.

Figure 15: Impact of the county line.Figure 15: Impact of the county line.

End Notes

[1] Julia Sass Rubin (2020). Toeing the Line: New Jersey Primary Ballots Enable Party Insiders to Pick Winners. NJ Policy Perspectives. June. https://njppprevious.wpengine.com/reports/toeing-the-line-new-jersey-primary-ballots-enable-party-insiders-to-pick-winners

[2] Andrea Cordova McCadney, Lawrence Norden and Whitney Quesenbery (2020, February 3) Common Ballot Design Flaws and How to Fix Them, The Brennan Center. https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research- reports/common-ballot-design-flaws-and-how-fix-them

[3] Francisco Diez, The Likely Advantages of the Line, Communication Workers of America analysis, July 29, 2019.

[4] In 2012, incumbent Congressperson Steve Rothman was defeated by incumbent Congressperson Bill Pascrell in the 9th Congressional District primary, after Rothman’s district was eliminated following redistricting. Rothman and Pascrell split endorsements, with Rothman endorsed and on the county line in Bergen and Hudson and Pascrell endorsed and on the county line in Passaic. The turnout in Passaic substantially exceeded that of the two other counties and Pascrell received 90% of that vote, giving him the victory. In 1972, incumbent Congressperson Cornelius E. Gallagher was defeated by incumbent Congressperson Dominick Daniels, after being redistricted from the 13th to the 14thCongressional district. The district was located in Hudson County and the Hudson Democratic party endorsed Daniels in the primary.

[5] Salem and Sussex Counties do not structure their ballots around the county line for either Democratic or Republican primaries and Morris County does not structure its ballots around the county line for the Republican primaries.

[6] In 2012, Pascrell received 90% of the vote in Passaic versus 27% and 26% in Bergen and Hudson Counties, respectively, both of which endorsed his challenger. Pascrell did not have a primary challenger in 2014 or 2016. In 2018, he received 88% of the primary vote in Passaic County versus 70% in Bergen and 81% in Hudson Counties. Pascrell has been an elected official in Passaic County for forty years.

Toeing the Line: New Jersey Primary Ballots Enable Party Insiders to Pick Winners

Posted on by Julia Sass Rubin

To read a PDF version of the full report, click here.

The infamous Florida butterfly ballot of 2000, which may have cost Al Gore the Presidency, highlights the dramatic consequences of bad ballot design for general election outcomes.[1] The design of primary election ballots can also have substantial consequences, as these elections determine which candidates advance to the general election. This research brief demonstrates how a unique ballot design has been helping shape electoral outcomes in New Jersey for more than two decades, shifting the power to decide who wins primary elections away from the voters and towards a small group of party insiders who control the candidate endorsement process.

New Jersey Primary Ballots

A review of primary ballots in all fifty states and the District of Columbia finds that New Jersey’s ballots look very different from those in other states.[2] In all other states and DC, primary ballots are organized by the electoral position being sought, with candidates listed beneath each position (see Figure 1, Elko County, Nevada ballot) or immediately to the right of each position (see Figure 1, Sussex County, Delaware ballot). These ballot designs make it easy for voters to identify which candidates are running for which electoral office.

Figure 1: Elko County, NV 2018 Democratic Primary Ballot (left) and Sussex County, DE 2018 Democratic Primary Ballot (right).

By contrast, in nineteen of New Jersey’s twenty-one counties, the machine primary ballots used by the majority of voters are organized around a slate of candidates endorsed by either the Democratic or the Republican Party.[3] These slates of candidates are known as the “county line” or the “party line,” in reference to the fact that the endorsements are determined at the county party level and the endorsed candidates are presented on the ballot as a vertical or horizontal line of names. Candidates not on the line are placed in other columns or rows, sometimes far away from the county line candidates.

Figure 2 shows the 2018 New Jersey Democratic primary ballot from Camden County. The nine county line candidates are in column 2. The remaining fifteen candidates are scattered across the other eight, mostly empty, columns. There is no obvious logic as to why each of the non-endorsed candidates is in a particular column. Column 1 includes a single candidate for the U.S. Senate. Columns 3 through 8 include eleven candidates for Camden County Freeholder. Column 9 includes two candidates for the US House of Representatives and a candidate for the Camden City Council.

A screenshot of a social media post Description automatically generated
Figure 2: Camden County, NJ 2018 Democratic Primary Ballot.

This ballot design — particularly listing candidates for the same office in different columns that may not even be adjacent, and candidates for different offices in the same column — makes it much more challenging for voters to determine which candidates are running for each office. Such a ballot design results in voters not realizing that some positions are contested or disqualifying their vote by mistakenly voting for too many candidates for a given position.[4] It also encourages voters to pick the candidates on the county line — an easy to find and visually consistent option. The county line is further advantaged by the placement of better-known candidates, such as those running for President, U.S. Senator, or Governor, at the top of the line and the inclusion of candidates for most or all of the offices on the ballot.[5] It is very challenging for candidates not endorsed by the party to compete with the county line by assembling a full slate of candidates that includes someone running for every position.

The county line is particularly advantageous for candidates whose names may be less familiar to voters, such as those running for the state legislature, and county-level or local positions. But the county line seems to provide a substantial electoral advantage regardless of the office being sought. A recent analysis by the Communications Workers of America found that no state legislative incumbent on the line had lost a primary election in New Jersey between 2009 and 2018.[6] Although incumbents generally win reelection, that advantage is rarely so absolute. In New York State, for example, twenty-two state legislative incumbents lost primary elections over the same time period.[7]  

The line provides an advantage for non-incumbents as well. For example, in the 2017 Democratic primary for Governor, Phil Murphy was endorsed by all 21 county political parties. Murphy won the primary in 20 of those counties but lost Salem county to John Wisniewski. Wisniewski’s win of Salem County is the first time since 1997 that a candidate in a Democratic primary for Governor or U.S. Senator won any county without being part of the county line.[8] Salem is also one of only two New Jersey counties, along with Sussex, that do not organize their Democratic and Republican machine primary ballots around a county line. Instead, the County Clerks in those two counties structure their primary ballots around the electoral positions being sought, like ballots in every other state in the country.[9]

The difference between the Salem and Sussex primary ballots and those in the rest of the state is dramatic. Figure 3 shows the gubernatorial portions of New Jersey’s 2017 Democratic primary ballots for Salem and Sussex counties versus the Middlesex County ballot. The six candidates for Governor are clearly identified as such in the Salem and Sussex ballots. In contrast, the Middlesex ballot lists the names of the six gubernatorial candidates over five different columns, with one of the candidates – Wisniewski – in a separate row from the other five. It is not surprising that candidates without party endorsement have little chance of winning when their names are presented to voters in such a confusing manner. 

A screenshot of a cell phone Description automatically generated
Figure 3: Salem County, NJ 2017 Democratic Primary Ballot (top left); Sussex County, NJ 2017 Democratic Party Ballot (top right); Middlesex County, NJ 2017 Democratic Primary Ballot (bottom).

Fair Primary Ballots for New Jersey

Problematic ballot design is frequently unintentional, the result of “overworked local officials who don’t have the time or staff to test whether a design works.”[10] When it comes to New Jersey primary ballots, however, faulty design is a feature rather than a bug. As detailed by Brett Pugach in a forthcoming Rutgers Law Review article, New Jersey’s primary ballot design reflects a combination of state laws and decades of court rulings that have created a confusing patchwork of regulations. The state’s county party organizations seem to have taken advantage[11] of this confusion to control the design of primary ballots, as a powerful means of benefitting the election of their chosen candidates.[12]

The New Jersey legislature could ensure that the state’s voters and not party insiders determine who wins primary elections by passing legislation that requires New Jersey primary ballots to be structured like those in other states. Those ballots would clearly indicate the title of each office being sought and, underneath or to the side of that, list the names of each candidate running for that office. To maximize ballot fairness, the candidates’ names would be randomly drawn and the order rotated by district, to counter the advantages of first-ballot position. Legislation that requires ballots organized in this manner ought to be a top reform priority for any legislators who care about election fairness.

End Notes

[1] Spenser Mestel (2018). How bad ballot design can sway the result of an election, The Guardian, November 19.

[2] The review included 2010 to 2020 primary ballots from at least four counties in every state and from the District of Columbia, as well as 2017 to 2020 primary ballots from all 21 New Jersey counties. See https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1vudVsxEcLvY2nZAfD_k88780nyh5sGCr?usp=sharing

[3] Some counties that use a county line for in-person machine voting ballots have used Vote-by-Mail paper ballots that are structured like ballots in other states, by the electoral positions being sought. In 2020, Hunterdon, Passaic, Salem, Sussex and Warren Counties are all using such Vote-by-Mail ballots for the Democratic and Republican primaries and Morris County is using such a ballot for the Republican primary. Historically, few New Jersey residents have voted by mail, so the impact of these ballots has been minimal. In 2020, however, the entire state is voting by mail, creating a natural experiment to assess the effect of the county line on voter behavior.

[4] Andrea Cordova McCadney, Lawrence Norden and Whitney Quesenbery (2020, February 3) Common Ballot Design Flaws and How to Fix Them, The Brennan Center. https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/common-ballot-design-flaws-and-how-fix-them

[5] In years when there are no statewide or national contests, the candidates for State Senate or Assembly are placed at the top of the county line.

[6] Francisco Diez, The Likely Advantages of the Line, Communication Workers of America analysis, July 29, 2019.

[7] Diez

[8] Nick Acocella, 2017. How Much Does the Line Matter? InsiderNJ.com, June 10. https://www.insidernj.com/much-line-matter/

[9] Morris County does not organize its Republican primary ballot around the county line. However, the Democratic primary ballot in Morris County is organized around the county line.

[10] Danielle Kunits (2020, June 12) Don’t Let Mail-in Voting be thwarted by badly designed ballots. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/06/12/these-are-9-senate-seats-most-likely-flip/?

[11] Julia Sass Rubin (2020, June 26). Can Progressives Change New Jersey? The American Prospect. https://prospect.org/politics/can-progressives-change-new-jersey/

[12] Brett Pugach (forthcoming). The County Line: The Law and Politics of Ballot Positioning in New Jersey. Rutgers University Law Review.

Local News is Necessary for a Thriving Democracy

Posted on by Sheila Reynertson

An informed citizenry and electorate is necessary for any fully functioning democracy to thrive. This is especially true in a state like New Jersey with its 565 municipalities, each bustling with their own unique issues, events and developments. Local news is an invaluable resource that keeps residents informed and, more importantly, plays a key role in helping communities stay civically engaged and invested.

Conversely, the erosion of local news is directly linked to drops in civic participation and social cohesion, threatening democracy as we know it. New Jersey has a vested interest keeping its communities properly informed, and right now that means protecting local journalism and its ability to report on current events in every corner of the state.

Last year, Governor Murphy sought to address this issue head on by signing the Civic Information Consortium (CIC) into law. The CIC is an initiative meant to support local journalism in collaboration with a few of the state’s public universities, including The College of New Jersey (TCNJ), Montclair State University, New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT), Rowan University, and Rutgers University. Specifically, the consortium would solicit proposals from people around the state with innovative ideas to support journalism in their communities. The CIC would have its own staff to manage the fund and a board of directors to develop strategic priorities and approve grants. The board would prioritize funding to proposals that cover communities lacking a local news source, especially underserved communities, low-income communities and communities of color. Unfortunately, the funding necessary for the effort — $5 million in the first year and $1 million each year after — has yet to be secured. The Governor’s FY20 budget proposal has just $1 million in support for this program. In a budget that exceeds $38 billion in fiscal year 2020, New Jersey must make it a priority to dedicate sufficient funds for the CIC.

Civic Engagement Drops When Local News Disappears

Mounting research finds that local news and civic engagement are inextricably linked. When local news outlets shrink or disappear, knowledge of local politics, voting rates, and the number of candidates running for office significantly drop. The less news coverage there is, the less informed the public becomes, resulting in a lack of scrutiny of local government decision-making.

In early 2009, the Rocky Mountain News folded and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer became an online-only publication. Researchers looked at the change in civic engagement after these events through a number of different metrics, including the number of residents who: 1) contacted a public official; 2) boycotted a product or service; 3) held membership in a neighborhood group; 4) help membership in a civic group; and 5) acted as an officer in a group. Compared to 8 other cities with their own dedicated newspapers still in business, Seattle and Denver saw a significant decline in civic engagement by most metrics.

Another study, this one of Cincinnati and its surrounding suburbs, assessed the impact of losing the Cincinnati Post in 2007. It found that, “fewer people voted in elections for city council, city commission, and school board; fewer candidates sought those seats; the remaining candidates spent less money on their campaigns; and, for councils and commissions, [and] incumbents’ chances of retaining office improved.” The report failed to find similar results in those Cincinnati communities served by the Cincinnati Enquirer, a paper that did not close.

The Economic Impact of Watchdog Reporting

Quality, local journalism requires robust resources in order to produce content that fosters civic engagement and promotes good government and healthy communities. Multiple studies have demonstrated that the public benefit that comes from quality press coverage makes government more accountable and communities more liveable. This is how it works: more sophisticated political coverage makes voters better informed, which increases oversight and induces politicians to be more industrious which, finally, produces better policies and outcomes for their constituencies.

A National Bureau of Economic Research working paper found that members of Congress who are covered with less frequency by the local press in their districts produce less benefit for their constituencies, according to things like their voting record, participation in hearings or serving on constituency-oriented committees. Without the built-in accountability fostered by local journalism, less federal dollars are invested in communities that lack adequate political reporting.

And in Democracy’s Detectives: The Economics of Investigative Journalism, Stanford University Professor James Hamilton examined the political and social change sparked by journalism and found that “each dollar spent on stories can generate hundreds of dollars of benefits to society.” Just one journalist can have an enormous impact, as illustrated by the case study of Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter Pat Stith of The News and Observer in Raleigh, NC. Stitch pursued over 150 investigations that led to the passage of dozens of state laws. We’ve seen similar achievements in New Jersey based on these excellent examples of journalism: a deep dive into the failures of New Jersey’s medical examiner system; an investigative report detailing a culture of sexual harassment and assault of inmates in state women’s prisons; and a look at Rutgers’ refusal to investigate sexual harassment claims against its professors.

Local News Builds Community and Community Builds Local News

As demonstrated by the infamous Bridgegate saga, local coverage is often the first to break a major story before it enters the national conversation. This is especially important in New Jersey, being the only state without its own major media market, with the New York market to the north and Philadelphia market to the south. Local journalists who break major stories are writing the first drafts of history, as their work eventually becomes an important reference for communities, historians, social scientists, and even epidemiologists. These diverse scholars have started to raise the alarm that losing local news and place-specific information cuts off communities who may be facing a crisis — like the lead poisoning in Flint. Losing local news sources also makes garnering national attention for critical issues much harder.

One of the core pillars of any healthy democracy is an informed public, especially when it comes to political issues. A strong local news outlet best serves its community when it creates an ecosystem of healthy debate and exchange of ideas to build social cohesion and empathy. In fact, the two actually reinforce each other: local newspapers are important to community engagement and those who feel connected to their community have stronger ties to local news.

State budgets are moral documents that represent that priorities and will of residents; making a commitment to support the CIC with state dollars sends a clear message that New Jersey values local news and recognizes its social and economic contributions to a thriving democracy.

 

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