On February 8, the New Hampshire State Senate passed SB 36 by a vote of 18-6. The bill eliminates the straight-ticket device and gives New Hampshire an office-group style ballot format.

A “straight-ticket device” lets voters vote for all partisan offices on the ballot with just one motion (the voter simply chooses one political party’s nominees for all offices, without voting individually for each office). The devices are especially injurious to independent candidates, since independent candidates never have such a device for themselves. These devices also injure minor party candidates. In 2006, slightly more than one-third of all New Hampshire voters used the “straight-ticket device.”