{"id":834,"date":"2012-11-01T22:20:00","date_gmt":"2012-11-01T22:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/highplainsblogger.wordpress.com\/2012\/11\/01\/straight-party-voting-needs-to-go"},"modified":"2012-11-01T22:20:00","modified_gmt":"2012-11-01T22:20:00","slug":"straight-party-voting-needs-to-go","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=834","title":{"rendered":"Straight-party voting needs to go"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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I detest straight-party voting.<\/p>\n

You know what it is, right? It\u2019s that place on the ballot that enables people to vote for every candidate of a particular party. One punch of the ballot and voters can walk away from the polling booth \u2026 no muss, no fuss.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a profoundly lazy way to vote. Texas allows voters to cast their ballots that way. My take on it is that the Legislature needs to change the law.<\/p>\n

I want to stipulate that my loathing of straight-party voting in Texas has nothing \u2013 well, almost<\/em> nothing \u2013 to do with the state\u2019s heavy Republican leanings. I\u2019d hate this style of voting even if the state leaned just as heavily toward the Democratic Party. But I didn\u2019t arrive in Texas until the spring of 1984, by which time the state\u2019s shift from Democratic to Republican dominance was well underway.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s my version of a perfect electoral world in Texas: Make voters go down the ballot, which can be lengthy, and cast their vote one race at a time. If they choose to select all candidates of one party, they are free to do so. But the generous ticket-splitters will judge each contest on the quality of the candidates seeking that particular office.<\/p>\n

It also must be noted that Texas election law has this curious provision that enables voters to punch the straight-party spot on the ballot while allowing them to vote for individual candidates from the other party. Why allow the straight-party provision in the first place if voters have the power to override their straight-ticket choice?<\/p>\n

Many voters in Potter and Randall counties, sadly, still like to vote for the party rather than for the candidate. And in this Republican-red region of a Republican-red state, the GOP benefits the most from this form of ballot-casting. We\u2019ll see a good bit of it once again when the polls open next Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Will the 2013 Legislature do the right thing and end this practice of straight-party voting? Probably not. The Texas Legislature is dominated by Republican lawmakers who are quite unlikely to cut their own party\u2019s political throat by requiring Texans to take a moment to think before casting their vote.<\/p>\n\n

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I detest straight-party voting. You know what it is, right? It\u2019s that place on the ballot that enables people to vote for every candidate of a particular party. One punch of the ballot and voters can walk away from the polling booth \u2026 no muss, no fuss. It\u2019s a profoundly lazy way to vote. Texas … Continue reading Straight-party voting needs to go<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-834","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/834","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=834"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/834\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=834"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}