Brief of Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, AAPI New Jersey, and Asian Americans Advancing Justice | AAJC as Amici Curae in Support of Plaintiff's Motion For A Preliminary Injunction

Asian Americans remain deeply underrepresented in New Jersey’s politics and elected offices. Though over 11% of the state’s residents are Asian American, only 3% of elected officials in New Jersey identified the same way.2 That disparity is driven in part by the ballot designs under challenge in this case (the “Challenged Ballot Designs”), which erect both (a) barriers to voting that disproportionately harm Asian American voters and (b) barriers to running for office that force Asian American candidates to run on an uneven playing field. These twin barriers preclude
Asian American voters from electing their candidates of choice.

The Challenged Ballot Designs interfere with the ability of Asian Americans to cast their ballots because they are unnecessarily complicated when compared to a simple “office block” ballot design—regularly used across the country and familiar to Americans old and new—that separates candidates by the office sought.