“This is now year 12 that New Jersey has not had an incumbent on the line lose in the Legislature,” said Julia Sass Rubin, a Rutgers professor who last year wrote a report on the party line ballot structure in most New Jersey counties and how it differs from all other states.
Rubin said getting rid of the party line, currently the subject of pending lawsuits, could improve turnout and give more candidates a fairer chance at winning.
“If you don’t have the line, people won’t drop out and if people don’t drop out, there’s someone to vote for,” she said. “If there’s someone to vote for, then you get more people into the voting booth and if you get more people in, then having a tiny group of party apparatchiks doesn’t decide your elections.”