BREAKING: The County Line is Dead
Judge rules in favor of Congressman Andy Kim to scrap the one-of-a-kind ballot positioning conducted in the Garden State.
United States District Judge Zahid Quraishi has issued a preliminary injunction; ruling to scrap the county line and replace it with block ballots; Marking an end to a 100-year-long tradition of how ballot positioning was determined in the Garden State.
Mark your calendars, New Jersey Outlookers! Today is a monumental day in New Jersey politics. From here on forth, NJ primary elections will be conducted just like all the other forty-nine states. There will be no more “awarding the line.” This marks a huge blow for party bosses and a huge win for all voters in NJ; especially to the ones who spent countless hours advocating for the line to be abolished.
“The Court finds that the harm Plaintiffs would suffer absent an injunction well exceeds the harm that Defendants would suffer should the Court grant the injunction,” said Quraishi in his ruling. “The integrity of the democratic process for a primary election is at stake and the remedy Plaintiffs are seeking is extraordinary,” Many voters who opposed the line have argued exactly what Quraishi’s statement: that candidates who have been awarded the line a significant advantage in the primary.
Congressman Andy Kim was very pleased with the judge’s ruling “Today’s decision is a victory for a fairer, more democratic politics in New Jersey. It’s a victory built from the incredible grassroots work of activists across our state who saw an undemocratic system marginalizing the voices of voters, and worked tirelessly to fix it,” said the Congressman. “While fixing this unfair ballot system is a massive step forward towards perfecting our democracy, there is still work to be done. Both in New Jersey and nationwide, we need to regain the trust of the voters we serve.” Despite the judge’s ruling, seventeen counties have filed an appeal to return to the line; which will be filed in the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals tonight. Although the line was thrown out today, it is important to keep the fight going so the voters will continue to decide who represents them and not party insiders behind closed doors.
Abolishing the line has been a longstanding hot topic in the Garden State. The controversially of the line reached a tipping point this year with First Lady Tammy Murphy’s candidacy for U.S. Senate; where her husband coerced county chairs to support her candidacy. In addition, U.S. Senate candidate Patricia Campos-Medina was barred from entering the building where the Camden County Democrats were conducting their county convention.
Today, the New Jersey political landscape has been changed forever. When NJ politics is chronicled in the future, this will be a top story taught in classrooms all over the Garden State. For all of those who advocated for abolishing the line: Congratulations! Your activism was successful and helped change the course of NJ politics for the test of time.
NJO will continue to follow the story of what will happen in Appeals Court, so stay tuned!
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