The county line is dead. Long live the county line.
Progressives who fought for years to ban the ballot structure, which advantaged candidates backed by state’s Democratic and Republican machines, are outraged over how Camden County Clerk Pamela Lampitt designed this year’s primary ballot.
Take a look at the Democratic one. The incumbent commissioners, who are backed by the Camden County Democratic Committee, are right under the unopposed Sen. Cory Booker and Rep. Donald Norcross. One could argue this is an office block structure as mandated by U.S. District Court Judge Zahid Quraishi’s 2024 ruling or the state law that followed. But it looks a lot like the old county line. Usually, you think of the office block structure like the 2025 Camden County primary ballot. There’s an individual, clearly delineated box for each office, which each candidate listed within it.
In a statement, the Good Government Coalition — made up of progressive groups — said the ballot is “in direct defiance of Judge Quraishi’s ruling” and a “troubling effort to circumvent the spirit and intent of recent reforms.”
And Julia Sass Rubin, the Rutgers professor who studied the line and advocated against it, said that while she doesn’t want to weigh in on the legalities of it, it goes against the spirit of the law and the decision. “Clearly this is not what the court had in mind,” she said, adding that if Camden County Democrats can pull this off, it could be a “slippery slope” for future primaries both there and in other counties.