On August 29, New Mexico Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver, a Democrat, said she will put a straight-ticket device back on New Mexico general election ballots. Her office put out a press release announcing the change. She did not hold any public hearing on the idea.
States that have repealed straight ticket devices in the past fifty years are Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Texas (effective 2019), and Wisconsin. Michigan repealed its device in 2016, but a U.S. District Court recently struck down the Michigan repeal.
Besides Michigan and New Mexico, the only states that still have straight-ticket devices are Alabama, Indiana, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Utah.
Geez, I wonder why she did that? (He said knowing darn well why.)
I expect the Gary Johnson campaign will be looking into legal options.
Not even a public hearing… No question for the reason why she did it in the first place. Disgusting how corrupt & protective of the twin-party system state governments have become.
MORONS in the gerrymander legislature or what ???
In SANE regimes the format of election ballots is very highly specified by LAW.
@Shawn Levasseur,
She is a Democrat running for re-election, and she is afraid that some voters won’t make it down to the SOS race.
Has she certified any vote counting machines to handle straight ticket voting? What if a voter wants to straight-party vote except wants to not vote for the party candidate for an office?
Her press release said that she was thinking about moms juggling jobs to veterans who couldn’t stand for long times. Why don’t polling places provide chairs? Federal law requires such accommodations.
The length of time to vote largely depends on how long someone has to stand in line. If voting straight ticket does noticeably make a difference in the time it takes to vote, then it means that voters are denied a secret ballot. It may also lead to coercion to vote straight ticket in order to reduce lines. It is like when you go to the grocery store and there is a 15-or-less line. You will deliberately buy fewer items to take advantage of the quicker time. If the limit were strictly enforced, some shoppers would deliberately drop items from their basket, placing them on floor or in the candy display.
If election officials attempt to balance lines based on allocation of voting devices, then they should take into account whether voters in a particular precinct utilize straight ticket voting in greater numbers. Efficient voters need less time, and voters who take more time by considering each race take more time. If the allocation of resources does not take into account the efficiency of voters collectively, then voters in longer-voting areas are being discriminated against.
In Texas, boxes on a ballot were numbered. A judge far down on the ballot might even include the box number in his campaign literature. “John Doe, Box 32 on the ballot.” The straight ticket boxes were 1 and 2, and voters were encouraged to “Vote one and done” or “Vote two and through” Long-time Republicans were instructed not to simply vote a straight ticket because it was known that corrupt Democrats would override individual choices.
If the problem is too many races (vertical ballot crowding) then ballots should be limited to a small number of races – say five. Any extra races could be held over to the next month.
How many States NEVER had the straight ticket devices (aka Donkey logos/symbols for illiterate voters)) ???
— and somehow survived.
If anyone wants to share their feelings further on this, here’s the New Mexico SoS’s facebook page- https://www.facebook.com/NMSecOfState/
And Maggie’s campaign page-
https://www.facebook.com/Maggie4NM/
Yep. She needs to lose reelection.
Here’s the NM Secretary of State’s facebook page-
https://www.facebook.com/NMSecOfState/
Here’s Maggie’s campaign page-
https://www.facebook.com/Maggie4NM/
Jim Riley- New Mexico has early voting. There are virtually no lines on election day.
Oregon — ALL paper mail ballots.
NO election day lines.
Sorry for the partial repeat post.
Richard, the LPNM is going to sue-
https://71republic.com/2018/08/30/new-mexico-libertarian-party-sues-state/
A improbable variety of all of our Pocket T-Shirts.
Basically anybody in need of a bunch of low cost t-shirts.
As a Democrat in a neighboring state (Oklahoma) I’m all for eliminating straight party voting. It makes people lazy and not do their due diligence in finding out what the candidates represent and if they are voting for the right candidate. Shouldn’t have done this. Was this a referendum that the voters approved?