On August 4, the New Jersey lawsuit over primary election ballot format came to an end.  Kim v Hanlon, 3:24cv-1098.  The lawsuit had been filed in 2024 to overturn the practice of giving some primary candidates are better spot on the primary ballot than certain other candidates.  The old discriminatory law had been enjoined in 2024, and the legislature had then passed legislation improving primary ballot format.  Lawsuits over ballot format in New Jersey are complicated, because each county sets its own format.  Bergen County, like the other counties that had been sued, finally conceded that the old discriminatory format will never again be used.

Now that it is settled that the old primary ballot format is unconstitutional, it should be possible for New Jersey minor parties to sue over the same problem that affects general election ballots.  In most New Jersey counties, the November ballot has party columns.  There is a Democratic column, and a Republican column, and a column headed by the words “Nomination by Petition” on the right edge of the ballot.  All candidates who are neither Republican nor Democratic nominees are squeezed into this third column.  The format encourages the ordinary voter to not even notice the candidates in that third column.  That is why the average Libertarian or Green percentage of the vote for down-ballot candidates is consistently a lower percentage than the Libertarian and Green percentages for the same office in all other states.

Here is the document that ends the lawsuit.