By Charles Stile, NorthJersey.com
At the very end of his historic 49-page ruling, U.S. District Court Judge Zahid Quraishi acknowledged he was setting off a political bomb that would reverberate in New Jersey politics long after the June 4 primary.
“The court wishes to make clear that it recognizes the magnitude of its decision,” he wrote. “The integrity of the democratic process for a primary election is at stake and the remedy plaintiffs are seeking is extraordinary.”
Rarely is a judge more blunt than this. This was not simply a policy nerd fight over the way primary ballots are designed. This was no academic exercise.
Democracy was on the line — a concern that shapes not only this case over the cornerstone of New Jersey elections, but the outcome of the 2024 battle for the presidency. It is the anxiety of the national moment.
And, seen through that lens, the ruling issued Friday aimed to alleviate that fear with a slam-dunk rejection of New Jersey’s Tammany Hall ballot system — the county line, as it’s commonly called — which political bosses use to turn local and state legislators into rubber-stamp stooges for the party machine.
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