Dear Members of the New Jersey Legislature:

I urge you to commit to adopting a fair and neutral ballot redesign for all future elections. To ensure a more equitable process, I ask the Legislature to commit to the following reforms: 

Commit to Implementing an Office Block Layout for All Elections
Each race on the ballot should be clearly separated into distinct blocks, with all candidates organized by office sought rather than by column or row.  

Commit to Ensuring Simplicity and Clarity
Design a ballot that is clear, simple, and easy to understand without unnecessary design elements that could influence voters' choices. There should be no unnecessary bolding, highlighting, asterisks, or other design elements that could confuse or mislead voters, and the formatting and font sizes should be consistent throughout the ballot for all candidates. 

Commit to Accessibility
Ballot design must be voter friendly, including for first-time voters, voters with limited English proficiency, and voters with disabilities. Ballots must also allow for expanded language access and translations should be user-tested to ensure they can be clearly understood. 

Commit to Ballot Neutrality
Randomize the order of candidates on the ballot, so no candidate receives an unfair advantage. The process of selecting the order for candidates should be automated using an electronic system to randomly assign the order that candidates appear on the ballot by voting precinct. Eliminate candidate groupings, bracketing, and endorsements to allow voters to make independent decisions. All candidates should be treated equally on the ballot. 

Commit to Ensuring Transparency and Public Input 
To ensure that more New Jerseyans can provide meaningful feedback on ballot redesign, the Assembly Committee on Ballot Design must hold more hearings and provide at least two weeks' notice for all hearings. In addition, any proposed legislation should reflect the will of the voters and be shared with the public with ample notice and opportunity to comment on the legislation. 

We believe that a fair and accessible ballot is crucial to upholding the democratic process in our state. By committing to these reforms, New Jersey can create a system where voters have an equal opportunity to make informed and independent decisions, where elections are more transparent, and where all candidates are given a fair chance to succeed based on their ideas and qualifications. We urge the New Jersey Legislature to implement these recommendations and ensure that the new ballot design is truly fair and accessible to all voters. 

Thank you,
The League of Women Voters of New Jersey