Congressman Kim Calls for Ballot That Gives New Jersey Voters a “Fair Choice” at Design Hearing

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Yesterday, Congressman Andy Kim (NJ-03) testified at a public meeting of the New Jersey Assembly Select Committee on Ballot Design, where he called for voters to have a ballot that ensures a “fair choice”, reflecting the “standard of fairness” provided by the decision of Judge Quarishi and upheld by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in its unanimous decision.

Kim entered Congress in 2019 with an agenda of combating corruption and restoring trust in government. Beyond his efforts to bring fairness to New Jersey’s ballot system, Kim was a lead advocate for H.R. 1, the For the People Act, which addressed the scourge of money in politics, and introduced the Restoring Trust in Public Servants Act, a bill that would set one standard across all three branches of the federal government – including Congress, the President, Vice President, and the Supreme Court– to prohibit ownership of individual stocks by high level government officials.

Watch Congressman Kim’s testimony here

The Congressman’s full testimony can be found below:

I want to thank the members of this Select Committee for the opportunity to testify today.

This Select Committee exists to ensure that New Jersey’s ballots reflect the standard of fairness laid out in the decision and order of Judge Quraishi and upheld by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in its unanimous decision. That is the stated goal of the Select Committee. The outcome of this Select Committee must not deviate from the direction set by the judiciary or the spirit of its decisions.

The Court’s decision exists, because the people of New Jersey were frustrated and demanded change.

Those frustrations and demands exist because the ballots reflective of the so-called “county line” system were fundamentally unfair and undemocratic. To this end, I’ve attached the expert reports that were submitted to the Court in Kim v. Hanlon as evidence of this unfairness and are incorporated into the legislative record today through my testimony, including by reference.

We must do better by the people of this state – people who have too often had their voices forgotten and their trust broken.

We face incredible challenges as a state and a country, and those challenges are multiplied by a crisis of trust in our politics.

If the people can’t trust their politics, they can’t trust that those working for them will actually do just that.

This select committee has an opportunity to take an important step in restoring that trust.

If this legislature is to design a primary election ballot worthy of the public’s trust, it must not only enshrine the prescriptions laid out in Judge Quraishi’s March 29, 2024 Order, but also not lose sight of the spirit of the decision.

Every candidate should be treated the same. No placement prioritization which leads to the “primacy effect” and other advantages we proved in Court. We need uniform, randomized computer or machine drawings, potentially with a rotational system, to determine each candidate’s position within the office block.

No emphasis added: no markings, no highlighting, no bolding, no asterisks, no special symbols or extraneous text. No manipulation. No indication of incumbency.

No physical grouping on the ballot of candidates as running mates for state assembly, county commissioners, town councils, of other positions.

As I said in my testimony in Federal District Court, groupings of running mates on the ballot add pressure on candidates to associate with each other in order to gain distinction on a ballot. Our right to freedom to associate also means our freedom not to associate.

Candidates are free to campaign together, but should not be treated differently on the actual ballot.

Just fairness. Just a ballot that gives people a fair choice and gives candidates a fair chance; nothing else. It’s what the people deserve and it’s what they want.

For too long New Jersey politics has had a negative reputation as being a place where too much power has been concentrated with too few people. That needs to end.

Let’s always remember, the ballot is sacred. It is the essential link between the people and their democracy. It is the physical manifestation of their participation. Our ballots are paid for by the people of New Jersey and are government documents; they do not belong to political parties or special interests.

Again, it’s as simple as saying every person on the ballot can and must be treated exactly the same. It is for the voters to select their elected representatives, not the other way around.

The ballot is not a forum for electioneering, voter manipulation, or voter confusion. It is a means for voter selection, and its function and fairness – and sacredness – lies in its simplicity.

At this pivotal moment in American history, New Jerseyans deserve to have confidence in their elections. You have the chance to codify in law what the Court Order has set forth, and to move our state forward from a national outlier on primary ballot design to a national leader that other states seek to follow. I urge you to set aside partisanship and politics and the pursuit of power to restore integrity and fairness to our ballot.

Thank you.

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