New Jersey’s prohibitions of fusion voting, codified at N.J.S.A. 19:13–4, 19:13–8, 19:14–2, 19:14–9, and 19:23–15 (together, the “Anti-Fusion Laws”), violate fundamental principles of liberty and democracy that New Jersey and federal courts alike have vigorously defended and enforced. New Jersey’s protection of free expression is rooted in respect for a free market of ideas, in which dynamic, open debate promotes truth. See Green Party v. Hartz Mountain Indus., 164 N.J. 127, 150 (2000) (internal citation omitted) (“Our description of the theory of freedom of speech is based on an analogy to the economic market.… [It] is based on the assumption that the truth will always win in a free and open encounter with falsehood.”).

These foundational free-market principles underly the protections for free speech and free association provided under federal law and extended under the New Jersey Constitution. See, e.g., id.; McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Comm’ns, 514 U.S. 334, 357 (1995) (citing J. Stuart Mill, On Liberty and Considerations on Representative Government 1, 3–4 (R. McCallum ed. 1947) and noting that “our society accords greater weight to the value of free speech than to the dangers of its misuse”). Indeed, the Framers “designed” the federal First Amendment “to secure the widest possible dissemination of information from diverse and antagonistic sources and to assure unfettered interchange of ideas for the bringing about of political and social changes desired by the people.” Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1, 49 (1976) (internal citation and quotation marks omitted). Both New Jersey and federal courts have applied exacting scrutiny where government restrictions have interfered with the free market exchange of political ideas and viewpoints. Justices have long noted that the “freedom to think as you will and to speak as you think are means indispensable to the discovery and spread of political truth.” Whitney v. California, 274 U.S. 357, 375 (1927) (Brandeis, J., concurring); Green Party, 164 N.J. at 150 (“the exchange of discordant views perpetuates the classical model of freedom that we pursue”).1