Federal appeals court upholds order barring county-line ballots

A federal appeals court upheld a preliminary injunction barring the use of the county line in June’s Democratic primaries, rejecting a request from the Camden County Democratic Committee to lift restraints on a ballot design a lower court judge found is likely unconstitutional.

The Third Circuit Court of Appeals’ precedential ruling will keep in place a March 29 order from U.S. District Judge Zahid Quraishi that said New Jersey’s county clerks must print office-block ballots, which group candidates by the office they’re seeking. County-line ballots group together candidates who are seeking various offices and are backed by party officials.

“The record before us supports the District Court’s ruling. It shows that the county-line system is discriminatory — it picks winners and punishes those who are not endorsed or, because of their political views, want to disassociate from certain endorsed candidates,” Judge Kent Jordan wrote for the court.

Attorneys Yael Bromberg, Brett Pugach, and Flavio Komuves, who argued in favor of jettisoning the county line, in a joint statement called Wednesday’s decision “monumental.”

“It ensures fair ballots in the applicable upcoming primary elections, and makes clear that New Jersey’s anti-democratic practice of the county line places an unconstitutional ‘governmental thumb on the scale’ and will not be tolerated by the courts,” they said.

The ruling is another big victory for New Jersey progressives, who have long argued that the county line improperly rewards party-backed candidates and dissuades potential candidates from attempting to challenge those candidates in primaries.

“This ruling is yet another step in the collapse of New Jersey’s antidemocratic political machinery that has robbed the people — especially voters of color — of the necessary power to elect candidates who truly represent them,” a group of social justice organizations said in a statement Wednesday.

Bill Tambussi, counsel for Camden Democrats, said the committee “respects” the decision.

“The Committee believes that the First Amendment freedom of association held by political parties is an important constitutional right to defend. The current system in Camden County has led to slates of elected officials of historic diversity and qualifications without limiting anyone’s access to the ballot. The Committee will be reviewing the decision further and deciding its course of action,” Tambussi said.

Because the suit that led to Wednesday’s decision was lodged by Rep. Andy Kim (D-03) and two Democratic congressional candidates and included no Republican plaintiffs, the injunction only bars county-line ballots in June’s Democratic races.

“This movement pushing for fair elections in NJ is powerful and is changing politics in NJ for the better,” Kim wrote on social media after the ruling was issued.

Kim, who is seeking the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate, and his co-plaintiffs argued the line violates constitutional rights to free association by requiring candidates to bracket with others to avoid an automatic disadvantage by virtue of the ballot’s design.

The Third Circuit judges agreed with Quraishi, finding Kim is likely to succeed on the merits of his challenge of the county-line system.

“That system forces candidates to choose between associating with candidates with whom they may not wish to associate or facing ‘Ballot Siberia,’” Jordan wrote. “It favors candidates whose views most align with the party bosses’.”

“Ballot Siberia” is a term county-line critics have used to describe when non-party backed candidates are given obscure places on the ballot.

Kim also has argued that the county line, which research has shown lends a measurable advantage to candidates who receive it, violates the elections clause of the U.S. Constitution because it improperly affects election outcomes.

The elections clause allows states to determine the time, place, and manner of their elections, but it bars state election law that affects election outcomes.

“The District Court found that the county-line form of ballot appears to do just that,” Jordan wrote.

Kim’s lawsuit targeted county clerks, most of whom had initially appealed Quraishi’s preliminary injunction but dropped that appeal after the Third Circuit panel declined two weeks ago to block the injunction pending the appeal.

The Camden County Democratic Committee — the only organization to join the case as an intervenor, and the only party that remained part of the appeal — argued its own associational rights were harmed by Quraishi’s injunction. The appeals court rejected those arguments.

“Nothing in the preliminary injunction prohibits the CCDC from including county parties’ slogans on the ballot, endorsing candidates, communicating those endorsements, or associating by any other constitutional means,” Jordan wrote. “The injunction simply means that the CCDC does not get to bracket its preferred candidates together on the ballot.”

Kim’s lawsuit remains ongoing, as is a similar 2020 lawsuit targeting the county line filed by former congressional candidate Christine Conforti.

A state Superior Court judge on Monday declined to issue a similar injunction for Republican primaries, finding a challenge lodged by a group of GOP candidates came too late in the process, but the judge allowed Burlington County Clerk Joann Schwartz to print office-block ballots for Democratic and Republican contests there.