On September 21, a state court judge in New Jersey said that the lawsuit filed on September 18, attacking New Jersey’s discriminatory ballot design, cannot be settled in time to affect the November 3, 2009 gubernatorial election. See this story. That does not mean that the lawsuit will not proceed. Probably a majority of constitutional election law lawsuits are not decided until after the election.
New Jersey has the worst ballot design of any state, for partisan elections, relative to how independent and minor party candidates are treated. Almost all of the counties print party column headings in large print, that say “Democratic”, “Republican”, and “Nomination by Petition.” All the non-major party candidates are squeezed into the “Nomination by Petition” column (sometimes there is more than one such column).
In some respects, this ballot design means that voting via absentee ballot in NJ might actually be better for third party candidates. In absentee ballot, all the candidates for a given office are listed in the same column. The Democratic and Republican candidates are still first, but it’s somewhat better.