Elections in New Jersey
In addition, the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission (ELEC) is responsible for administering campaign financing and lobbying disclosure.
The New Jersey Constitution of 1776[4] allowed "all inhabitants of this Colony, of full age, who are worth fifty pounds proclamation money" to vote.
As a result, at the presidential level, New Jersey is now considered part of the solid bloc of Democratic states in the Northeast referred to as the "blue wall".
As New Jersey is split almost down the middle between the New York City and Philadelphia television markets, advertising budgets for statewide elections are among the most expensive in the country.
The state's Democratic strongholds are generally the more urbanized northeastern, central, and southwestern counties along the New Jersey Turnpike.
In March 2024, a New Jersey federal judge issued a preliminary injunction in Kim v. Hanlon, preventing the county clerks from following the practice as highly likely to be unconstitutional.
To address this, the New Jersey state legislature introduced reforms starting in 1903, aiming to allow voters to directly choose candidates and reduce the influence of the machine.
Despite the initial success of reforms, political machines regained control through legal decisions,[26] leading to the establishment of the New Jersey county line.
Micah Rasmussen, director of the Rebovich Institute for New Jersey Politics at Rider University, said he believed the county line could be a useful tool for screening candidates and preserving party identity.
These folks who are chairs have had decades of experience and why you would ignore that experience is beyond me.”[36] In 2024, Essex County Democratic Chair LeRoy Jones authored a New Jersey Globe column defending the associational rights of political parties and advocating for the legislature to adopt a uniform ballot design.
[39][40] As one commentator noted during the early 2024 county conventions prior to the Democratic party primary in June 2024: Many of the largest party organizations in the state have endorsed Tammy Murphy [for U.S. Senate] without having their members vote — and that has raised questions about the endorsement process’s fairness because of the governor’s outsize influence and power.
... Tammy Murphy received the endorsements of eight Democratic Party county committee chairs in the five days after she announced her candidacy for Menendez’s seat.
[41] In 2024, New Jersey progressive activist Winn Khuong told Politico she believed that the lack of secret ballots tended to make committee members feel political pressure to vote in accordance with the local county chair.
If the ballot is not secret, then the party operatives can coerce voters in a number of ways, including the threat of losing their public jobs.
"[43] Some commentators in outlets like the New Jersey Globe have stated that the local county chairs have a vested interest in being seen as the sole source of the decisionmaking power with respect to the line award, as their personal individual control over it – and thus their control over the political future of candidates – is the source of their ability to raise donations and affect political outcomes in the state.
Committee members in Essex, Hudson, and Camden counties do not participate in voting for Senate race endorsements, leaving the decision solely in the hands of their chairs.
Middlesex County conducts an advisory vote, but party officials mentioned to Gothamist that it is at the chair's discretion whether to follow it.
[36] A pending lawsuit, Conforti v. Hanlon, filed in 2020 by former candidates and New Jersey Working Families Alliance, is challenging the county line as unconstitutional;[44][45][46] U.S. Senate candidate Andy Kim filed a similar suit, Kim v. Hanlon, in 2024, successfully obtaining a preliminary injunction ceasing the practice as of the June primary election.
[50] April 20 is the mailing deadline for the June primary if the county line is struck down and an office block layout is used.
[51] In March 2024, the liberal political organizations End Citizens United and Defend The Vote coauthored a guest column in Insider NJ in support of Kim's suit.
[52][53] That same month, the Wall Street Journal editorial page issued its support for Kim's suit, calling the line an unconstitutional practice and problematic bossism.
[54] The ACLU joined Kim's suit as an amicus, also arguing against the county line practice as hindering a fair vote and as illegal governmental viewpoint discrimination.
[57][58] On March 17, New Jersey Attorney General Matt Platkin filed a letter brief with the court in the Kim suit, explaining in detail the legal reasons why his office would not defend the state's county organizational line, as he had concluded based on the legal history and record in the case that it was unconstitutional.
[60] On March 29, the district court issued a preliminary injunction against the Democratic county line, directing clerks to instead print ballots with candidates organized by office in randomized order for the 2024 primary election.
[61] On March 30, the court issued an order, in response to a letter query from Republicans, that the preliminary injunction, as a technical matter, only restrained the Democratic primary county line as the Democratic primary was the only election in which plaintiffs had sought relief in the instant matter; however, the court noted that county parties and clerks could observe the applicability of its reasoning to the entire ballot should they choose to.
By March 31, the Warren, Ocean, Burlington, Essex and Hudson county clerks had each excused themselves from an effort to appeal and agreed to implement the non-line ballot as ordered in time for the June Democratic primary, the remainder of the county-line clerks indicated they planned to pursue an appeal, claiming it was too challenging to implement a non-line ballot by the deadline.
