gerrymandering – NJ Appleseed

Gerrymandering is getting a lot of attention lately. Republican states such as Florida and Texas have been redrawing the lines of their Congressional districts in an attempt to boost their electoral prospects in the upcoming midterm elections. Democratic-led states such as California are fighting fire with fire by doing the same.

But gerrymandering is not just something that other states or Republicans do. It is a problem right here in New Jersey too. In early 2022, after Jersey City redrew the lines for the six wards that make up its voting districts, multiple community groups and residents alleged improper political gerrymandering and went to court to get the electoral map struck down and redrawn. Their lawsuit ultimately failed but the plaintiffs and New Jersey Appleseed, which represented them in the case (along with other attorneys), have now shifted their focus to changing New Jersey’s Municipal Ward Law so that something similar cannot happen again—in Jersey City, or elsewhere in the state.

On June 24, 2026, they achieved politically what had eluded them via the courts, when the City Council for Jersey City unanimously adopted Ordinance 26-044, which mandates sweeping reforms to the City’s ward redistricting process. The landmark ordinance establishes binding fairness standards regarding communities of interest, requires robust public hearings, and provides metrics for geographic compactness, which was a central issue in the litigation.

Statewide changes, however, remain necessary. Of NJ’s 564 municipalities, an estimated 60 or more of varying sizes throughout the state, also utilize a ward system. They include NJ’s largest cities such as Newark, Trenton, Paterson, Elizabeth and Camden, and smaller places like Montclair, Morristown, Plainfield, Clinton, Rahway and Gloucester City. A change to the state law that governs ward redistricting would put guardrails in place to protect against future gerrymandering in all of those places.