Former Rutgers Law School Dean and Public Advocate Ron Chen and former NJ Attorney General and current Director of Rutgers’ Eagleton Institute of Politics John Farmer cite Bloustein School professor Julia Rubin’s research on the county line in an editorial about New Jersey’s lack of democratic elections
“As Rutgers Professor Julia Sass Rubin explained in her 2020 report, “Toeing the Line: New Jersey Primary Ballots Enable Party Insiders To Pick Winners,” in contrast to all other states and the District of Columbia, in which ballots are organized according to the offices being sought, in 19 of New Jersey’s 21 counties the “primary ballots are organized around a slate of candidates endorsed by either the Democratic or the Republican Party … [and] 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.”