Buried near the end of a typically excellent Texas Tribune analysis by Ross Ramsey, is an item that sent chills up my spine.

It reads: Straight-ticket voting accounted for 64 percent of all voting in the state’s ten largest counties in the 2016 general election. If that holds in 2018, almost two-thirds of the vote will be cast with more attention to party than person.

Ramsey’s analysis talks about the candidate whose name isn’t on the ballot: Donald J. Trump. If Trump’s approval numbers are up, Republicans will do well; if they’re down, Democrats might have a glimmer of hope.

Read the analysis here.

Why do I have the heebie-jeebies? Because I hate straight-ticket voting, no matter which party is up. The GOP is currently the “up party” in Texas.

What galls me to the max is that a healthy majority of voters in the state’s largest counties vote for the party rather than the individual.

Sad, man!

I live in one of the state’s larger counties these days. Collin County will figure mightily in the midterm election that is coming up quickly.

If only I could persuade state legislators to change the law, propose a constitutional amendment, do something proactive to force voters to examine every race individually before casting their ballots.

Spare me the idiocy that voters don’t have “the time” to look at these races when they step into the ballot box.

Parties shouldn’t matter more than the individual we elect to serve us, the people.