Kentucky holds its election for statewide executive positions on November 6, 2007. Incumbent Republican Secretary of State Trey Grayson is running for re-election. At a debate on September 29 between him and his Democratic opponent, Grayson came in strongly in favor of eliminating Kentucky’s straight-ticket device. The number of states with the device has slowly been shrinking. New Hampshire eliminated it this year.
Our rights are slowly shrinking and will eventually erode away. I want more options in Kentucky and SOS Grayson is a McConnell hack attempting to extinguish our voting rights while slowing the dem vote in Kentucky. This should be the final nail in Grayson’s coffin.
William,
This is not “extinguishing our voting rights”, but rather moving us towards a more informed electorate whereby people will vote for the best candidate by being familiar with the issues and what they stand for rather that just a political party affiliation.
Several other states have already moved in this direction, for example, Michigan, under governor John Engler eliminated straight ticket voting back around 2000.
We need knowledgeable voters, not monkees brainwashed to simply pick a capital letter.
As a Kentuckian, I agree with Mr. Becker here, and applaud Mr. Grayson – a friend of third parties that allowed people to actually register as “Libertarian,” “Green,” etc., instead of just “Other.”
There are only six or seven races (depending on whether your precinct has a judge’s race) on the ballot here, plus the library tax in Louisville (see my blog as to why you should vote ‘No’). If you are so lazy that you only want to press one line, instead of six, then in my opinion you do not deserve to vote. Make people THINK about who they are voting for.
Since no one in their right mind would vote for David Williams (a perennial candidate who uses a machine to talk since he has voice-box problems, and then is still impossible to understand what he is saying since he is so incoherant, not the State Senate Majority leader with the same name), most of his votes will be from the “straight ticket device.”
Of course, in Kentucky, even if you vote straight ticket, you can override it by choosing someone in the other party for a given election.
Also, William, since “straight-ticket” does not apply to judges races or tax votes, the existance and use of the feature will mean that many people will think they are voting once for all races, when they actually aren’t. The straight ticket device actually lowers our perceived choices, not raise them.
Another note about Kentucky: Kentuckians don’t generally vote straight-party anymore. For example, this is the first time the Governor and the Attorney General have been of different parties. Thus, the current Governor was “caught” doing things that previous governors have done for a hundred years (Giving jobs to people of his or her party).
I guess Dems and most Pugs want to keep it. 3rd parties not so much.
Michigan still has the straight-ticket device. Although the legislature repealed it, the Democratic Party did a referendum petition, and the voters then voted to keep the device.
States that have eliminated the device in the last 10 years, besides New Hampshire, are Illinois and Missouri.
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