A5181

An Act concerning the rotation of candidate names appearing on primary election ballots and supplementing chapter 23 of Title 19 of the Revised Statutes.

Be It Enacted by the Senate and General Assembly of the State of New Jersey:

1. a. Notwithstanding any other law, rule, or regulation to the contrary, the county clerks or municipal clerks, as the case may be, shall determine the position which the candidates for each race shall have upon the primary election ballots in each election district, or upon the ballots provided to voters as described in subsection d. of this section, using a rotational order system and rotation algorithm as specified herein.

b. Following a determination made pursuant to subsection a. of this section as to which rotational order system shall be used, the name of each candidate shall be rotated with the names of the other candidates so that the name of each candidate appears substantially an equal number of times at each possible order, from first to last, on the ballot before an equal number of voters. The county clerk or the municipal clerk, as the case may be, shall conduct either one of the rotation procedures specified under subsections c. and d. of this section.

c. For rotations being conducted by election district, the county clerk or municipal clerk, as the case may be, shall:

(1) determine the initial or base rotation of candidate names for all offices and party positions for which rotation shall be required, using the drawing procedures provided under R.S.19:23-24;

(2) determine the number of registered voters in each election district for each race that is subject to candidate rotation as of 8:00 A.M. on the 65th day before the primary election, identify such election districts, and arrange such districts in order of the number of registered voters, from largest to smallest;

(3) calculate the number of rotations needed for each office by determining the number of candidates for each office; and

(4) assign an election district to each rotation as further specified in this subsection.

Starting with the largest election district by population, the county clerk or municipal clerk, as the case may be, shall assign an election district to each rotation. If there are more candidates than election districts, the assignments shall stop after the last election district has been assigned. If there are more election districts than candidates, the clerk shall keep a running subtotal of the total number of registered voters assigned to each rotation. After each rotation has been assigned one election district, the clerk shall assign the next largest election district to the rotation with the lowest subtotal of registered voters. The clerk shall continue assigning the next largest election district to the rotation with the lowest subtotal until all election districts for that race have been assigned.

d. For rotations being conducted by presenting individual ballots to each voter when voting by mail, voting during the early voting period, or voting in person on election day, the county clerks or municipal clerks, as the case may be, shall follow the uniform guidelines developed pursuant to subsection f. of this section, which shall include, but need not be limited to:

(1) methods for determining the number and distribution of mail-in, provisional, emergency, and any other paper ballots to be used in undertaking the ballot rotation; and

(2) standards and security protocols for any computerized algorithm to be used to rotate the order of candidate names as they appear on voting machine ballots.

e. Not later than five days after the order of candidate names has been determined pursuant to this section, the county clerk or municipal clerk, as the case may be, shall print a report for each race, showing the rotation subtotals for all races and all candidates within each race. This report shall be made publicly available on the official websites of the appropriate county clerk, county board of elections, county superintendent of elections, and municipal clerk.

f. Within 30 days of the effective date of P.L. , c. (C. ) (pending before the Legislature as this bill), the Secretary of State, in consultation with all county clerks, county boards of elections, and superintendents of election in this State, shall develop uniform guidelines to be followed to implement a rotational order system and rotation algorithm established by this section, which shall specify procedures for achieving the rotation on any paper ballot and voting machine ballot used in any primary election in this State.

2. This act shall take effect immediately.

STATEMENT

This bill requires the county clerks or municipal clerks, following a draw for ballot position, to additionally conduct a rotation of candidate names appearing on the primary election ballot. A rotation algorithm will be used to rotate the order in which the names of candidates will appear on the ballot. The rotated ballots may be presented to the voters by assigning the ballot versions per election district, or by randomly presenting such ballots to each voter when voting by mail, voting during the early voting period, or voting in person on election day. As a result of this rotation, voters may receive different ballots where the same list of candidates is ordered differently. The goal of the rotation system is for each candidate to appear substantially an equal number of times at each possible order, from first to last, on the ballot before an equal number of voters, and that no candidate will be advantaged over other candidates on the basis of their ballot placement or position.