On August 12, the plaintiffs filed this brief in Balsam v Guadagno, the federal lawsuit that says states cannot pay for partisan primaries unless all voters are permitted to vote in those primaries.
Ballot Access News
Edited By Richard Winger
On August 12, the plaintiffs filed this brief in Balsam v Guadagno, the federal lawsuit that says states cannot pay for partisan primaries unless all voters are permitted to vote in those primaries.
The brief didn’t much. Didn’t the Supreme Court say that if the state requires primaries then those states have to pay for those primaries? political parties should pay for their own primaries, then those parties can control who votes.
Since new jersey has a semi-open primary system, the only people prohibited from voting in primaries in new jersey are those that are registered with third parties. There are no registered independents in new jersey, instead a person can be listed as unaffiliated (registered with no party affiliation). Unaffiliated votes can vote in either the democratic or republican primary, but then become registrants of the party whose primary they voted in. To deregister from that party, the voter would then need to submit to the state a notification of their intent to change party affiliation to unaffiliated. Third party registrants can vote in their parties nominating conventions, but members affiliated with the Natural Law Party, Conservative Party, and possibly the Reform Party (less than 2000 people in the state combined) can not currently do so as their party’s are defunct and no longer hold conventions. Interestingly enough there is no manner to remove a defunct minor party from the state acknowledged list of minor parties and the only way for a party to get on such a list is to sue the state.