At noon on February 16, the New Mexico legislature adjourned for the year. SB 218, the bill to require a straight-ticket device on general election ballots, did not receive a vote in the House, so it is dead for this year.
States with a straight-ticket device are Alabama, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Michigan, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, and West Virginia. It is likely that the North Carolina legislature will repeal the straight-ticket device when it meets in regular session in May 2012. The bill to eliminate it, SB 47, passed the State Senate last year.
Awesome. These devices are absurd…they’ve hurt downballot third party candidates a lot…not to mention, they just generally discourage democracy in favor of partisanship.
Agreed, this is good news for democracy.
Straight ticket devices work well for lazy non-thinking voters only. They should all be repealed.
Has anyone done any kind of study about whether straight-ticket voting hurts alternative parties?
It seems like it would, but I don’t know of hard evidence.
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