On March 29, U.S. District Court Judge Zahid Quraishi, a Biden appointee, issued a temporary injunction in the lawsuit over New Jersey ballot format in primary elections.  He ordered the 19 counties that don’t use an office-block style to switch to office-block ballots for the June 4, 2024 Democratic and Republican primaries.  Kim v Hanlon, 3:24cv-1098.

Here is the 49-page opinion.  The first 28 pages deal with procedural objections to the lawsuit, and disputes over which expert witnesses could testify.  The merit portion of the opinion starts on page 29.

The case is not over, but it is extremely likely that the discriminatory ballot format will be held unconstitutional, if the legislature doesn’t pass a bill making the change before the case ends.

The New Jersey general election ballots in 19 of the 21 counties are equally discriminatory against minor party and independent candidates.  It will be interesting to see if the general election ballot format gets reformed.