“The most obvious solution is to adopt ranked choice voting, which also would diminish the power of outside money to propel a single candidate to victory,” said Sass Rubin, the Rutgers professor. “At the very least, the legislature could adopt ranked choice voting for congressional races, which have been attracting the largest numbers of candidates.”
Topic
Julia Sass Rubin
Rubin and Flores-Serrano Receive NJASPA Awards
The New Jersey Chapter of the American Society for Public Administration (NJ ASPA) honored ten distinguished public servants and eight outstanding graduate students at its 2026 Annual Awards Reception. Dr. Julia Sass Rubin received the NJ ASPA Academic Excellence Award and Juan Flores-Serrano, MPP (’26) received a Student of the Year Award.
Baraka, ex-gubernatorial candidate, seeks 4th term as mayor of N.J.’s largest city
“If you assume that the county line would have given those people a huge advantage, you would essentially come down to who came from the largest piece of the district,” said Julia Sass Rubin.
NJ activist sees fruits of her labor — many primary rivals
“If you assume that the county line would have given those people a huge advantage, you would essentially come down to who came from the largest piece of the district,” said Julia Sass Rubin.
The Return of the County Line?
“Clearly this is not what the court had in mind,” [Rubin] 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.
The State of Jersey Politics
Rutgers University professor Julia Sass Rubin said the county line’s demise has led to more candidates, an uptick in voter turnout, and 11% of the 57 Democrats in the Assembly winning their seats despite not getting a county party endorsement. “This feels like small steps, but they’re not. … Ending the county line opens up the possibility for real reform in our state,” Rubin said.
Princeton Democrats Take a Close Look at 17 Candidates Hoping to Succeed Bonnie Watson Coleman – and the Winner Is . . .
Elections and ballet reform advocate Julia Sass Rubin, associate dean of Academic Programs at the Bloustein School, Rutgers University, noted that “tonight’s forum in terms of the health of democracy was very exciting. It is incredible that we have 17 candidates. We do not know yet if each candidate will get the number of petition signers to qualify for a position on the ballot, but still the interest is awesome,”
Could 17-year-old voters swing a congressional seat in NJ? Here’s how
“New Jersey is a state whose politics are controlled by political machines, and they like to know who’s going to vote,” Julia Sass Rubin said. “And the primary is the most important election in New Jersey, because we don’t have very competitive general elections for the most part.”
In a State Notorious for Scandal, Corruption Fighters Are Targeted
“It was an earthquake that definitely left cracks in the wall,” said Julia Sass Rubin, an associate dean at Rutgers University’s Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy. “But the wall is still there, for now.”
EJB Talks: Fighting for Government Accountability in NJ
Stuart Shapiro asks Julia Rubin, why New Jersey has long been considered one of the most politically corrupt states. She explains how a consistent pattern of high-profile cases have contributed to this perception, citing the influence of the state’s longtime political machines and the now-abolished “county line” primary ballot that heavily favored party-backed candidates as primary examples. She also walks us through how years of research, lawsuits, and the more recent Menendez scandal have culminated in a major reform that replaced the county line with fairer office-block ballots, leading to more competitive races, higher voter turnout, and a growing number of reform-minded legislators.