Bills to increase the number of signatures for independent candidates, and the nominees of unqualified parties, are moving through the New Jersey legislature. The sponsors of these bills, S3994 and A5117, claim that New Jersey general election ballots are crowded. These claims are not true.
The most recent New Jersey gubernatorial election was in 2021. There were only five candidates for Governor on that ballot.
The most recent legislative elections were in 2023. For the 40 seats in the State Senate, there were only 86 candidates, for an average of only 2.15 candidates per seat. For the 80 seats in the Assembly, there were only 160 candidates, for an average of 2 candidates per seat. There was no legislative race with more than three candidates per seat. A few of the legislative races had only one candidate on the ballot.
The most recent presidential and congressional elections were in 2024. For president, there were nine candidates on the New Jersey ballot. The U.S. Supreme Court had said in Williams v Rhodes, 393 U.S. 23 (1968), that eight candidates are not so many as to cause any problem. This appears in Justice Harlan’s concurrence on page 47. Other states that had as many or more presidential candidates on the ballot in 2024 were Idaho, Louisiana, Minnesota, Mississippi, and Washington.
For the U.S. Senate race in New Jersey in 2024, there were only six candidates. For U.S. House races, there were only 54 candidates for the twelve seats, for an average of 4.5 candidates per district. No district had more than six candidates on the ballot.
There could never be any crowded ballots with a standing count.
@Stan There would be a crowded room.
How would a crowded ballot confuse voters any more than a crowded parking lot? Which of these is more likely to increase voter confusion:
A) Placing one more candidate on the ballot
B) Removing one candidate from the ballot
The answer is almost always B – the name thousands expect to see isn’t there. And if the state is so concerned about the confusion their own ballot causes, why don’t they relinquish the monopoly?
WHAT PCT OF VOTERS IN PRIOR ELECTION IS HIGH ENOUGH TO HAVE ONLY SERIOUS CANDIDATES—-
LOWER
0.1 ???
0.2 ???
0.3 ???
HIGHER
Nobody has to print anything in a standing count room. There’s no additional cost to more groupings of voters, and no confusion. There’s no reason to require more than one voter being present to form a would be group. As for a literally crowded room, they could relocate to a larger hall, although presumably the hall would be large enough for the eligible turnout and this wouldn’t happen. I take it that’s not what you meant.
The ballot equivalent would be a write in, but that creates certain issues – legibility, extra ballots snuck in if prewritten or printed ballots are allowed, discrimination between those that need to be written in and those printed, the need to qualify ahead of time to allow a period to print and distribute ballots, etc. None of these problems exist with the standing count.
How would a crowded ballot confuse voters any more…?
In several ways. Some people suffer from dyslexia and other difficulties which cause confusion with a lot of names on a ballot.
But the bigger issue is that voters may be unfamiliar with various names on the ballot, having had no time to study them with everything else going on in their lives. Or, perhaps with memory problems, they researched them all but get confused as to which one was which.
In a standing count room, group leaders and or designees get to explain why they are forming a group to everyone present then and there.
Ballot design is also an issue. There’s the matter of which names are printed in what order. At times, poor ballot design has genuinely caused confusion, as with the infamous year 2000 butterfly ballot, but that was not the only time.
“Which of these is more likely to increase voter confusion:
A) Placing one more candidate on the ballot
B) Removing one candidate from the ballot
The answer is almost always B – the name thousands expect to see isn’t there.”
Not necessarily. Voters are inundated with campaign ads, news coverage and interviews which lead them to think they know all their options in a given contest. They could be confused when they see a ballot filled with other options they didn’t realize would be there. These days, it’s possible that they could stand there and research them on the spot on their phones, but that might lead to excessively long lines and wait times to vote.
Speaking of long voting lines, that’s another problem nobody would ever have with the standing count. While the time it takes to vote would be longer for some, it would be shorter for others, and roughly equal for everyone, as well as predictable ahead of time – an important factor for busy people as they plan their time to allocate it among various tasks and responsibilities.
With ballot voting some people end up leaving long voting lines when it takes much longer than expected, and waiting times tend to be disproportionate in some kinds of voting areas as opposed to others.