Straight-Ticket Voting: Helpful or Harmful?

Chapter 10 discusses the ideas of citizen participation through voting, campaigns, and elections. Voting gives citizens a voice, it is a guarantee that every citizen can express their beliefs about policies affecting the future of our country. In particular, it discusses the importance of having high rates of varying population groups participating in voting in order for elections to truly be considered democratic.

New Mexico’s Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver recently promised to reinstate straight-ticket voting in her state. Straight-ticket voting is a modification to election ballots in which there is an option that allows voters to vote for their entire party’s political candidates without having to go through and individually select each one. Supporters of straight-ticket voting claim that it simplifies the process by cutting down the long lines and busyness that ballots can present to voters. They also claim it increases voting participation as it ensures that citizens will not leave sections unmarked.

Source: http://www.wilx.com/home/headlines/Straight-Ticket-Voting-Could-End-In-Michigan-360415331.html

However, critics against straight-ticket voting claim that it is a ploy for the majority party, in New Mexico’s case the Democratic party, to stay in control. GOP Executive Director Ryan Gleason said “Straight ticket voting is an underhanded and potentially illegal power grab by an elected official who is supposed to referee partisan battles, not lead the charge.” He viewed this move by Secretary of State Toulouse as a political strategy to ensure her party’s dominance, “Democrats are pursuing monolithic one-party control of every elected office in New Mexico and will openly undermine our democracy to get it.” He believes that by Toulouse promising to reinstate straight-ticket ballots she is appealing solely to the Democrats in her state. While this is motivating and an incentive for them to participate in voting, the message can leave members of other parties feeling alienated, overpowered, and unheard.

I believe that straight-ticket voting is detrimental to our democratic voting process. Among being a political strategy for some leaders to appeal to their party members, it poses many other problems that undermine the purpose of voting. For one thing, straight-ticket voting fuels the political divide that has been an increasing trend in our country’s political atmosphere. It creates an incentive for people not to vote based on what their beliefs on specific policies affecting their community are, but instead purely based on their political party. Chris Cillizza, a journalist for “The Fix,” a politics blog for the Washington Post expressed his worry about straight-ticket ballots, “It suggests we have become increasingly tribal in the way we think about elections. You are either with ‘us’ (whoever that ‘us’ may be) or against us. There’s no room for a candidate-by-candidate assessment up and down the ballot.” Straight-ticket ballots eliminate any incentive for citizens to research the candidates running, what their platforms are, their policies, their past history, etc. Straight-ticket ballots ensure that no one will have to be educated on the problems posed in their community and what leaders they believe would be best to help them, which leads to a decrease in citizen’s political participation as well as personal investments in their community.

Straight-ticket voting is gaining popularity in our country’s politically divided climate. A 2013 survey stated that in North Carolina where straight-ticket ballots are used, “the Raleigh-based Democratic-leaning firm Public Policy Polling found 68 percent support for straight-ticket voting and 21 percent opposition. PPP found Democrats and Republicans supported it almost identically.” However, as straight-ticket ballots move towards the norm, I cannot help but worry that this will lead to our country becoming further polarized and lead to less involved and educated citizens participating in voting. As chapter 10 states “Even fiercer partisanship, moreover, increasingly is keeping candidates from choosing policies that reflect the wishes of the median voter in the electoral competition model, making this democracy-enhancing electoral mechanism less effective.” If we continue on this path of division in our country, we will continue to undermine the democratic voting system’s purpose and leave many citizen’s voices unheard.

Source: (Sabato’s Crystal Ball, University of Virginia)

Sources:

https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/new-mexico/articles/2018-03-14/new-mexico-official-promises-straight-ticket-vote-option

https://www.abqjournal.com/1150042/straight-party-voting-may-return-to-new-mexico.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/09/07/this-chart-should-petrify-senate-republicans-hoping-to-cling-to-their-majority/?utm_term=.2dbfbdb8cbbf

http://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/election/article95286262.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/11/17/is-split-ticket-voting-officially-dead/?utm_term=.1476cd180a93

https://www.brennancenter.org/blog/how-bad-north-carolina’s-ballot-flaw-numbers-say-pretty-bad

https://ballotpedia.org/Straight-ticket_voting

4 Responses to "Straight-Ticket Voting: Helpful or Harmful?"

Alexander Morris says:

March 27, 2018 at 10:05 pm

Isabella,

Wonderful article and great read. After reading your post, I have to say I have never heard of “straight ticket-voting” but I would have to agree with your points you made. I believe that it is taking away the notion that people must do research in order to actively know who to vote for in their given election. You made a great point in your post when you discussed this idea. Our voting process was built the way it is so that voters could precisely make an active decision into what was right for their community. I believe this tactic of straight ticket voting is just a lazy way for people to get out of voting ballet lines. I also believe that it is a way for candidates to get excessive votes that they may not have gotten otherwise. It all seems a bit sketchy in terms of underlying intentions. Many people who are uneducated and people who do not know much about political campaigns will find straight ticket voting helpful and in fact will gain votes for those parties, however maybe if the uneducated people voting really understood what the candidates who they just voted for are actually trying to do, they might make a different decision on voting for them. Overall, great article and interesting points made on your assessment of straight ticket voting.
Hannah Grow says:

March 28, 2018 at 3:23 pm

Isabella,

I really enjoyed this blog post and agree completely that straight ticket voting is undermining the democratic voting system. As we know from class, humans inherently seek out shortcuts and unfortunately this shortcut is hurting more than helping. After doing more research on straight ticket voting I found a case in Michigan where a motion to ban straight ticket voting has been challenged under the argument that it would weaken the voice of African American voters. They argue that African American voters will disproportionately suffer from the ban on straight ticket voting because of “a historical link between discrimination and education, lower literacy rates and the potential for ‘confusion that causes longer waiting lines and more spoiled ballots.” I disagree wholeheartedly with this argument and believe that banning straight ticket voting will encourage voters to pay more attention to the ballots they cast. Instead of wasting time and energy on keeping a flawed voting system like straight ticket and devote those resources to tackling bigger barriers to voting.
Chloe Blond says:

March 28, 2018 at 3:40 pm

Isabella,

Thank you for your blog post. Like Alexander said, I also have never heard of straight ticket voting. While I can’t disagree with any of the points that you made, I thought it might be interesting for discussion’s sake to mention a few opposing points. First, when people are faced with an intimidating, exhaustive number of ballot decisions, voter fatigue sets in. Voter fatigue occurs when voters begin to feel disengaged and uninterested. As voter fatigue sets in, voters begin leaving bubbles empty and participation drop off by the end of the ballot can be significant. Voters in Texas that opted for straight ticket voting explained that while they understand there is a difference between the two major parties, it is impossible to know the qualification and public records of all candidates. So, a smart choice in this position is to cast a straight ticket vote. If straight ticket option voting is taken away, candidates that are further down on the ballot will be forced to spend more money in order to build their name in order to gain support from special interest groups. In other words, straight ticket voting allows parties to stretch their resources because they don’t have to spend money publicizing individual candidates.

As you argued, straight ticket voting might lead to a polarized country. If we continue on this path of division, we will undermine the democratic voting system’s purpose and leave many citizen’s voices unheard. But couldn’t we also argue, that straight ticket voting, with its convenience, encourages more citizens to vote. With more citizen’s voting, more voices are being heard and in fact democracy is being supported?

https://www.tribtalk.org/2015/03/15/in-defense-of-straight-ticket-voting/
Paige Jordan says:

March 28, 2018 at 4:28 pm

Isabella, thank you for your post.
While I can understand why one may support or object straight-ticket voting, I find it ultimately comes down to the question of if simply not voting for a particular candidate is more harmful than “blindly” voting for every candidate within a particular party. For the voter that would have voted for every candidate within a particular party regardless of if there was an option to do so from the start, straight-ticket voting is merely a convenience. Who is to say there doesn’t exist citizens who do vote for every member of their party? However, providing them with the convenience to check off one box at the very beginning, perhaps then eliminating long lines and wait times, is weighed with the potential votes that would occur that are not fully intentional. Which situation has less of an opportunity cost to society? It is interesting to me to see the objection that it could perhaps strengthen the already severe political divide. Would citizens really utilize straight-ticketed voting simply because they are too lazy to consider each candidates views on every matter? While it is true that humans are by nature cognitive misers who try to use as little brain power as possible, I wonder if this would significantly translate to elections and further, future policies.

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