Tyler Simko and I wrote this column for New Jersey Spotlight News about the distortive “county line” system of ballot design. HLS’s Election Law Clinic also filed this amicus brief in the ongoing litigation over the county line. The brief points out that the county line has a larger impact on election results than just about any other contemporary electoral policy.

The county line system is not just odd; scholarly evidence also shows that it leads many voters to choose certain candidates simply because they are listed in more convenient ballot positions. For example, Professor Julia Sass Rubin from Rutgers University has argued that the county line system impacts elections by “steering voters towards specific candidates” and “increases voter confusion, contributing to overvotes and undervotes” by as much as 50 percentage points in some races. Professor Sam Wang from Princeton University arrived at similar conclusions in an expert report submitted as part of Kim’s case, finding New Jersey incumbents running on the county line are 11 times less likely to lose their primaries than other officials across the country. Other work by Wang, Rubin and Hayden Goldberg, a legal researcher with the Electoral Innovation Lab, finds that New Jersey candidates receive an advantage of over thirty percentage points by being on the county line. 

Why is changing the current ballot design so controversial? One reason is that the county line system offers party insiders the effective ability to choose their own preferred candidates. Current politicians are often reluctant to give up this power, which some have argued helps to ensure quality candidates. Some, like Kim’s primary opponent Tammy Murphy, oppose changing election rules so close to the June primary. But this system limits the influence of voters well before Election Day, as many candidates drop out of the race if they don’t receive the county line position (only about 9% of New Jersey primary races are contested). A plausible legal argument against the county line could claim the system burdens voters and distorts outcomes without a sufficient “state interest” for the policy. Indeed, this is the approach that Kim’s case pursues.