From CNN:
Federal court scraps New Jersey’s controversial ‘county line’ ballot design
Voting rights advocates scored a major victory Friday in New Jersey when a federal judge struck down the use of a controversial primary ballot design that favored party-backed candidates.
The decision is potentially a grave blow to the state’s powerful political machines, which have for decades used the so-called county line to prop up their endorsed candidates. The system is currently used in 19 of the Garden State’s 21 counties.
The preliminary injunction granted by US District Judge Zahid Quraishi is almost certain to be appealed, but, for now, it means that New Jersey voters will use office block ballots – the standard across most of the country – during the June primary. The lawsuit was brought by Democratic Rep. Andy Kim, who is running for the seat of scandal-tarred incumbent Sen. Bob Menendez, and two other South Jersey-based House candidates, who argued that the current system is unconstitutional.
Quraishi’s order includes specific language barring county elections officials from organizing their ballots “by column or row” and replacing it with a “randomized ballot order system … which affords each candidate for the same office an equal chance at obtaining the first ballot position.”
Anger over the “county line” ballots has been growing for years in New Jersey, the only state that uses the design. Activists filed a lawsuit in 2021 that Kim, with the same lawyers, effectively revived with his Senate bid as he competed against party machine-favored rival Tammy Murphy, the first lady of New Jersey.
But Murphy dropped out of the race earlier this week amid a grassroots backlash tied, in part, to frustration over the advantages conferred by “the line.”
“Today’s decision is a victory for a fairer, more democratic politics in New Jersey. It’s a victory built from the incredible grassroots work of activists across our state who saw an undemocratic system marginalizing the voices of voters, and worked tirelessly to fix it,” Kim said in a statement that described the ruling as a triumph for those working “to restore and protect voting rights.”