Even though a U.S. District Court enjoined the old New Jersey ballot format for primary elections last year, the lawsuit continues. Plaintiffs want a permanent injunction that the old format is unconstitutional. Some of the Defendants and intervenors, including the Democratic Party of Camden County, insist that the lawsuit is now moot and no such order is needed.
On April 23,, the plaintiffs filed a brief in favor of a further court order. Kim v Hanlon, 3:24cv-1098. The old primary ballot format put the candidates favored by the party organizations in a better spot on the primary ballot, and let the party-endorsed candidates all in the same favorable column.
With a write-in only ballot this issue could not arise. Print no names, get no jockeying for “prime” real estate on the ballot.
The issue would also not arise with a standing count, which would also not require anyone to possess the increasingly rare skill of knowing their ABCs, which is becoming ever rarer at an exponentially increasing rate, much less the even more archaic and arcane skill of legible handwriting.
Write in only ballots would require voters to either spend a lot of time researching candidates and memorizing their names or rely on cheat sheets from organizations. Thus, very few voters would actually control elections and would effectively have far more power than those who are busy, have many other priorities that come before politics, and/or that don’t belong to or trust the best organized factions with the most money, people, and other resources to drill their candidates names into everyone’s hands or distribute their cheat sheets.
So, the vast majority of us would be effectively shut out from having any real say, unlike with standing count.