New Jersey Bill to Increase Petition Requirements Passes Assembly and Also Passes State Senate Committee

Identical bills have been introduced in the New Jersey legislature to increase the petition requirements for both primary and general elections. SB 3994 and AB 5117 increase the general election statewide petition from 800 signatures to 2,000. For U.S. House, the increase is from 100 to 250 signatures.

For primaries, statewide petitions rise from 1,000 to 2,500 signatures. U.S. House rises from 200 to 500. Legislature rises from 100 to 250.

AB 5117 was introduced December 9, and passed the Assembly on December 19 by a vote of 46-27. SB 3994 passed the Senate State Government Committee on December 19. Thanks to Deirdre Goldfarb for this news.


Comments

New Jersey Bill to Increase Petition Requirements Passes Assembly and Also Passes State Senate Committee — 14 Comments

  1. should be pct of prior election votes in election area involved
    ———
    each state is a nation-state
    internal elections – externals stay out

  2. One thing that is being overlooked is that the signature requirement to run as an independent/minor party candidate is being drastically increased. A an independent candidate or minor party candidate for municipal office would need up to 250 signatures under the new law, whereas a democratic or republican candidate would need far fewer, (as few as 50 or 25 depending on the size of the town)

  3. Does the NJ legislature expect this bill to reduce voter confusion by having less names to look at? People are good at picking out names from a list.

    Or will it increase voter confusion by not seeing the name of the candidate they know about, because the petition was rejected for having too few signatures? “I thought so-and-so was running, how come I don’t see their name here? Am I missing something?”

  4. New Jersey has one of the two worst definitions of a ballot-qualified party of any state. It is so bad no third party has ever been ballot-qualified in New Jersey under the current law, which passed in 1920. It requires a group to have polled 10% of all the votes cast for lower house of the legislature for its candidates for the lower house. If the legislature is going to increase the petition requirements, in fairness it should have a far easier definition of a qualified party.

    The other state with a horrible definition of a ballot-qualified party is Pennsylvania, which rqeuires the group to have registration membership of 15% of the state total.

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