New Jersey Working Families Party State Director Antoinette Miles has issued the following statement in response to reports about upcoming ballot design legislation:

With the county line gone and ballot design in the hands of the Legislature, it’s clear that Assembly members are scrounging for whatever they can find to rig an office block ballot and give preference to their preferred candidates again.

The Assembly Special Committee on Ballot Design heard hours of testimony where the public made clear that they wanted a fair ballot. Not one member of the public testified in favor of permitting the bracketing of running mates. No one testified in favor of a bracket or special indicators for incumbents only.

Simply put: these reported proposals are unacceptable and should be dropped from any forthcoming legislation.

Proposals for computerized drawings and rotation of the names of candidates on the ballot are improvements. But it’s not enough to make these provisions optional at the discretion of a clerk or, in some cases, the Democratic or Republican Board of Elections members in every county. This doesn’t even meet the standard of so-called “ballot uniformity” that many party leaders and officials publicly professed to believe in. 

Again, the purpose of the ballot is for voters to select their preferred candidates. It is not a platform for electioneering or manipulation.

We demand a fair ballot design and won’t accept anything less.

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