Witnesses urged lawmakers on a special legislative committee regarding ballot design to adopt office-block ballots and cautioned against adding much information to the ballots at the panel’s second hearing Thursday.
The hearing, which was the first to accept the public’s testimony on how to redesign New Jersey’s ballots, follows a federal judge’s order that barred the use of party-line primary ballots, which group certain candidates into a single row or column. Critics have said party-line ballots give some candidates an unfair advantage…
Julia Sass Rubin, director of the public policy program at Rutgers University’s Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy and an expert witness in the lawsuit that spurred Quraishi’s order, said any ballot that connects two separate candidates “could influence which ones voters select and that, by definition, would not be a fair ballot.”
Rubin urged against a ballot design similar to one in Connecticut that automatically awards party-endorsed candidates the top ballot position, warning that it would unduly favor those with party backing.
“I think it’s still a very unfair ballot,” Rubin said. “I would say let’s go for a fair ballot.”
