well the state is in the midst of one of the most hotly contested primary elections in years with 11 major party candidates running to succeed Governor Murphy and all 80 seats in the assembly up for grabs but the upcoming June 10th primary is also a first in New Jersey history without the so-called countyline ballot system which research shows has helped party bosses for decades by allowing them in effect to handpick their party's nominee now it's gone and the race is more or less anyone's to win senior political correspondent David Cruz reports [Music] we're about to find out a lot about the impact of the death of the party line in New Jersey it's the first year where neither major party is using the line and already we've seen some changes says Julia Sass Rubin whose research helped fuel the court challenge to the line i would say the two most notable impacts so far are the um the fact that so many both Democrats and Republican candidates including pretty legitimate candidates with a shot at winning choosing not to go for an endorsement as you know that would have been unheard of before and then I think the other impact is just the number of people running for the legislature so we have more than twice the number of people running as we did two years ago okay but it takes more than more candidates to make a democracy are voters curious enough to come out and see what all the ballot fuss is about if you haven't yet it's easier to use says Nuzach Chowry of the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice the way that the races will be organized will be the office will be clearly marked at the top of that particular section there should be perhaps like a little box but the names of the candidates who are running for that office will be listed directly underneath that particular office or beside that particular office and candidates names will be randomly selected so you could have the party endorsement and be the last name on the list and vice versa a guaranteed top spot is a big advantage to lose but the new rules also allow slogans and the county party slogan can say endorsed by the county party for whatever that may still be worth the county organizations are not worth nothing just because their their their line has gone away right they still have the expertise the knowhow the tools um you know and and they're still going to use them they still know how to win in their neighborhoods and in their towns and you have to build a better mousetrap so how could it all play out in the gubanatorial primaries jack Chidarelli the Republican seems to have benefited from going allin on getting county party endorsements and the feeling is that if you add in the Trump endorsement even random ballot positioning might not be enough to help the other two candidates in the race on the Democratic side where the difference between the top candidates in a field of six could be single digits positioning could matter more rubin says we may not necessarily be able to pinpoint it to the absence of the line but that certainly makes surprises more possible a we have candidates running who are very viable who are not on the line b if one of them actually wins that would be quite dramatic if they had no for example if Philip won or Baraka won they don't have the line in any counties but even if Godheimer or Sweeney um I mean they don't have the line in very many counties so that would also be quite dramatic and I think we're the other thing I'm watching for is what's the power of the county organizations without the line supporters of the party line defend it as an orderly way to get a good sense of the county party's members but democracy is supposed to be messy and it's possible that from out of this coming mess some kind of new order is possible i'm David Cruz NJ Spotlight News [Music]