Well, another county clerk has agreed to settle a lawsuit over the so-called party line ballot system used in new Jersey.

Monmouth County, which was the first defendant named in the federal lawsuit challenging the ballot design, will drop its defense of the ballot and is agreeing to use office block ballots in future primary elections.

Clerk Christine Hanlon said after the attorney general declined to continue defending the line.

It didn't make financial sense to continue battling it in court.

It comes as a number of other county clerks and political chairs have settled their suits, and as a new select committee in the Assembly kicked off a series of hearings to determine what a new ballot could potentially look like.

Senior correspondent Brenda Flanagan reports.

Certainly, fairness should apply to every election held in our state for the brand new Assembly Select Committee.

It's all about drawing up a fairer ballot for new Jersey voters.

One that erases the advantage.

Jersey's political bosses, historically wielded by stacking preferred candidates in the old county line ballot.

Lawmakers called in an expert from Colorado for advice.

There is definitely more than one way to design a ballot and still give voters an easy way to select the candidates that they most prefer.

Wendy Underhill explained other states use some form of office block style ballots or random drawings, giving every candidate a fair shot at a decent spot.

She noted lawmakers have several choices and systems that there are more than one system that leads to winners and losers based on those voters choices.

And that's what an election, of course, is all about.

So new Jersey is really on its own thinking this through sort of from from scratch, actually.

New Jersey got here following a grassroots revolt against the county line ballot and multiple lawsuits, one filed by Democratic Senate candidate Andy Kim, who sat in on the committee hearing, and it with Judge Saheed Qureshi's order for county clerks to switch and use office block ballots in the recent Democratic primary.

Essex County's Eliana Pinto, a marine, said her voters found the change tough to follow.

English is not a first language.

So we had an example of what the office block looked like, in the past election.

And it was like people were confused, right?

But Essex County Clerk Chris Durkin considered the new ballot switch a, quote, positive experience.

But overall, I thought, the voter, handled the change.

Understood.

The block ballot voting, and, you know, overall, I think it was pretty seamless.

Other county clerks described a backlash from angry voters.

There's been a lot changing in elections over the last few years.

And while each individual piece of policy I know was meant to enfranchise voters, bring more people to the table, it's sown a lot of distrust and a lot of confusion when you make a change.

Let's do it properly.

Let's do it right.

Let's do it with education.

I don't have a problem with office block, style.

A panel of six election officials, some from counties still involved in settling legal ballot disputes, said some of their voters wanted candidates grouped together.

Voters will vote for who they know, and they look for those clues to see if they're, candidates that have their same values and whether that Republican, Democrat on a local level, the local candidates want to be with, they want to be they want to be in a club.

They want to be together.

And, you know, they seek that grouping through the county committees and through the county county conventions really boils down to one thing, which is, you know, everyone should be treated the same on the ballot.

No one should be given any advantage.

You know, some of the question lines were saying, you know, can some of the Assembly candidates be positioned together?

I mean, you know, that concerns me.

The committee says Kim will receive an invitation to testify.

So far, the Assembly's launched this ballot design project without input from colleagues in the Senate.

New Jersey Working Families, which also filed ballot lawsuits, wants full engagement.

It was sort of not quite starting out on the right foot to not have at least some form of public testimony being given here today, and to start with an invitation only hearing.

The committee will meet several more times to get more input.

What's their deadline?

Well, one county clerk told them she's got to start putting a ballot together by March 24th at the Statehouse in Trenton.

I'm Brenda Flanagan, NJ Spotlight News.