New Jersey Democratic Rep. Andy Kim implied Thursday morning that his party is corrupt for trying to “manipulate” voters with a sneaky ballot design.
CNN anchor Kasie Hunt held up what she said was a diagram of the New Jersey Democratic primary ballot consisting of multiple columns with the presidential candidates in the first column shared by only a few of the senatorial candidates, such as Tammy Murphy, the first lady of New Jersey. Kim said the remaining senatorial candidates were less prominently visible in a later column, stating that voters may “miss” those options.
“Oh, a huge impact,” Kim said about only a few senatorial candidates being shown in the first column of New Jersey ballots. “And it’s been determined — in fact, our lawsuit has the newest data about how this impacts it. Upwards of double-digits advantage for someone who’s in what’s called the county line, because it’s just something that draws in the voters and oftentimes people even miss that there are other columns further off. So, you know, this is something that is a real concern and it’s trying to basically manipulate and take advantage of voters. And I think that that’s wrong.”
“We should be able to give everyone a fair chance,” the congressman said. “We’re the only state in America that does this. Forty-nine other states do what’s called office block ballots, which is the norm.”
Kim filed a federal lawsuit Monday over his state’s ballot design, alleging that it unconstitutionally favors candidates supported by New Jersey political leaders, The Associated Press (AP) reported. He told the CNN anchor that his party should be “protecting our democracy” while stating that Murphy would unfairly benefit from the ballot’s design as the two compete to fill the seat of Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez amid calls for his resignation. (RELATED: New Poll Shows Indicted Bob Menendez With Single Digit Support For Reelection)
“I believe that the Democratic Party is a party of protecting our democracy and making sure we’re preserving that,” Kim said. “But right now in my home state, Democratic Party elites are the ones that are putting their thumbs on the scale of this Senate primary, trying to be able to put this in the favor of the first lady of New Jersey, the governor’s wife, who obviously controls a lot of power in that family.”
“Whereas I believe that democracy should be fair and open to anyone that should be able to participate, not just the well-off and the well-connected,” the congressman said.