New Jersey’s ballot design that gave party bosses big influence is officially dead

March 7, 2025

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy on Thursday signed into law a redesign of primary ballots, formally ending an entrenched system that gave unique influence to the state’s party bosses but faced an unexpected wave of opposition.

It’s known as the county line and was an only-in-Jersey phenomenon that faced a reckoning following the 2023 indictment of Sen. Bob Menendez. But it became a strange vestige of Tammany Hall-era machine politics that then-Gov. Woodrow Wilson tried to snuff out over a century ago.

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