This October 5 story in Newark, New Jersey’s daily newspaper has a picture of the November 3, 2009 ballot from Warren County. It shows how the Democratic nominees are in one row headed “Democratic”; the Republican nominees are in another row labeled “Republican”; and the other ten gubernatorial candidates are squeezed into a third row.

The news in the story is that Warren County has decided to change the heading of the third row from “Non-Partisan” to “Nominations by Petition.” Click on the link inside the story that says “her county’s ballot” to enlarge the ballot. The change was made after the Libertarian Party nominee, Ken Kaplan, complained. However, the change does little to fix the basic unfairness of the ballot design. New Jersey and New Hampshire are the only states in the nation that gives party column headings to the qualified parties, but not to the unqualified parties.

Each New Jersey county is permitted to design its ballot in its own way. A few New Jersey counties do not even use party columns. Instead, they simply list all the candidates for any particular office in a list, although they always print the Democratic and Republican nominees at the top of that list.

Note that the Warren County ballot puts Chris Daggett, the leading independent gubernatorial candidate, second from the end of the candidates in the “Non-Partisan” column.