Michigan Supporters of Straight-Ticket Device Will Amend their Complaint to Charge that Bill Eliminating Straight-Ticket was Motivated by Intent to Discriminate Against Black Voters

As noted earlier, in December 2015 the Michigan legislature repealed the straight-ticket device, but in 2016 a U.S. District Court granted an injunction forcing the state to keep the device in place for the November 2016 election. The issue of whether the U.S. Constitution requires Michigan to have a straight-ticket device is not settled yet.

On January 19, the U.S. District Court granted permission for the supporters of the straight-ticket device to amend their complaint so as to allege that when the legislature repealed the straight-ticket device, that action was motivated with the intent to harm black voters. It appears that the supporters of the straight-ticket device feel their case, as outlined in their earlier complaint, needs to be strengthened, and the way to strengthen the case is to show that the legislature acted with discriminatory intent. The state government defendants had argued against permitting the complaint to be amended, but Judge Gershwin Drain is permitting the amended complaint. However, he denied permission for the opponents to also amend their complaint to include a charge that the repeal of the device violates the First Amendment.


Comments

Michigan Supporters of Straight-Ticket Device Will Amend their Complaint to Charge that Bill Eliminating Straight-Ticket was Motivated by Intent to Discriminate Against Black Voters — 8 Comments

  1. Wait, I’m confused. the headline reads that Supporters of the straight ticket device were allowed to amend their complaint but the second paragraph states twice that the Opponents are the ones amending their complaint.

  2. Do I understand this argument correctly? Are the supporters of the straight ticket device suggesting that minority voters are too easily deceived and confused by all the candidates to mark their ballots properly in their own best interest?

  3. Thank you both. I have fixed the post. I am a little bit “off” today because my spouse had a stroke two days ago and my mind has been on that. He is in the hospital and we very badly hope he regains the ability to walk, which he can’t do right now because the stroke interferes with left arm and left leg.

  4. I wish the best for you and your spouse, Richard.

    Much love to the both of you, and the hard work that you do to further third party causes.

  5. Richard, only positive thoughts your way. Thanks for doing this service for so many, many years.

  6. Walt,

    Here is the judge’s ruling that enjoined elimination of the straight ticket device.

    http://media.mlive.com/news_impact/other/Injunction.pdf

    The judge essentially ruled that removal would have disparate impact on black voters, and likely leading to longer lines in areas with more black voters. He also indicated that black voters have justification for voting a straight Democratic ticket. The judge may be a bit over the top since he was ruling on injunctive relief, which is based in part on the possibility of harm to the plaintiffs.

    The question then is whether fewer voting booths are allocated to areas with higher concentrations of straight-ticket voting (which correlates with race). This would be a reasonable allocation of a limited resource (voting booths, election clerks, parking, etc.). If it takes 2 minutes to vote a straight ticket, and 10 minutes to vote a full ballot, a voting machine can handle five times as many straight-ticket voters as full-ballot voters. It is the same reason that an express lane at a supermarket can handle more shoppers.

    It would be interesting to depose election officials on whether they actually do this; and also whether there is correlation between straight-ticket voting, and skipping propositions or non-partisan offices. If election officials do consider the share of straight-ticket voting, then they are arguably inducing straight-ticket voting. Straight-ticket voting may also violate the right to a secret ballot.

    Anyhow, since the judge has already indicated that straight-ticket voting may have a discriminatory effect, he is now letting the plaintiffs to argue that the Michigan legislature intended that to be the case.

    It is quite possible that news about the lawsuit, caused Trump to carry Michigan.

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