SOUTH JERSEY (KYW Newsradio) — A legal battle is playing out in Gloucester County over the ballot design in this year’s election. A judge ruled it’s unlawfully designed, but he said it would be too confusing to make changes this close to Election Day.
Gloucester County clerk James Hogan, a Democrat, created the ballot in an office block format, which is required for primary elections. However, general elections require columns grouped by party.
Republicans filed an appeal after a judge ruled that the ballot design is, in fact, unlawful. However, he ruled against changing it now because that may be confusing to voters.
County GOP vice chair Marla DeMarcantonio is asking appellate judges to overturn that initial ruling. She said the mail-in ballots are a lost cause because they were already sent out, but there is still plenty of time to make changes on the machines for early voting.
“The superintendent of elections, who actually handles the machines, said they really only needed a redesigned ballot by Oct. 15 and they would be able to make the necessary changes,” she said.
“We still are within that time frame, and they can go ahead and order the clerk to redesign the ballot as the state law requires in the column format.”
Micah Rasmussen, director of the Rebovich Institute for New Jersey Politics at Rider University, said Hogan used the office block format rather than the column format to try to create a small advantage for the Democratic Party to stay in power and prevent down-ballot Republicans from riding Jack Ciattarelli’s coattails.
“And [Hogan] did it — this was not an innocent mistake,” Rasmussen said. “He did it because he’s trying to limit — and I’m not trying to ascribe motives to him, but he knows that Ciattarelli ran strong.”
Two appellate judges are expected to issue a ruling in the coming days. No matter what is decided, Rasmussen doesn’t expect it to have a drastic impact on the election outcome.
Hogan did not respond to KYW Newsradio’s request for comment.