NJ Attorney General says he won't defend the 'county line' ballot design
Attorney General Matt Platkin referred to the current New Jersey ballot design as "unconstitutional" and told a federal judge that he doesn’t intend to defend them in court as part of the ongoing lawsuit filed by Rep. Andy Kim.
Filed last month, the Kim lawsuit alleges that New Jersey's ballot design creates an unfair advantage for the candidate awarded the "line" or the first position on the ballot. The clerks from all 19 counties that use the “county line” ballot design are named as defendants.
There is a hearing in the case scheduled for Monday with Kim among the potential witnesses.
Platkin called the state’s ballot design “unique” and said that “conditions have subsequently altered the real-world impact” of the statutes that implemented the line design in the first place, including the ability for political parties to endorse primary candidates and for statewide candidates for U.S. Senate and governor to be included in the bracketing process.
“Real-world practices illustrate the impact of the “county line,” Platkin wrote. “It is often impossible for unbracketed, non-pivot office candidates to secure an earlier position on the ballot compared to their bracketed competitors. These features of grid balloting and bracketing also have allowed unbracketed candidates to be placed at the end of a ballot with multiple blank spaces separating them from their competitors, which creates the phenomenon known as ‘ballot Siberia.’”
Platkin noted that the design used by the other 49 states and two New Jersey counties known as the office-block ballot “avoids these concerns for candidates and voters alike, while still communicating candidates’ legitimate associational interests.”
Gov. Phil Murphy disagrees with Platkin, according to spokesperson Mahen Gunaratna, who said that “outside the context of any campaign, Governor Murphy has consistently and accurately noted that the bracketing of candidates is permitted by duly enacted laws that have been on the books for decades.”
“It is well-established that Attorneys General have a general obligation to defend the constitutionality of statutes, regardless of their own personal views,” he said. “The Governor believes that a legal defense of the statute permitting bracketing would have been appropriate and consistent with the actions of prior Attorneys General."
Kim is calling for the changes as a contentious campaign season heats up ahead of the June primary where he faces the state's first lady, Tammy Murphy. They are vying for the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate seat currently held by Sen. Bob Menendez.
"The system provides preferential ballot position for such candidates and displays them in a manner that nudges voters to select them, even when they otherwise might not," Kim's filing says.
"By contrast, their opponents are often excluded from a chance at preferential ballot placement, displayed in a column by themselves or in a manner that is less appealing to or harder to find for voters, separated by one or more blank ballot spaces from their opponents, stacked in a column with candidates for other offices with whom they do not want to be associated, and/or otherwise strewn about haphazardly on the ballot," the suit contends.
The suit alleges that the current ballot design is a violation of the First and 14th amendments under the federal constitution because it is used to "nudge voters toward bracketed and particularly county line candidates."
This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: NJ's county line ballot design won't be defended by attorney general
