Posted on 11/02/2006 9:19:53 AM PST by rface
1 million straight-party ballots were cast in Missouri for the 2004 election. Democratic ballots outnumbered Republican ballots almost 100,000 or by 10%.
“We know that the majority of straight-party voters are Democrats. There’s much belief in the Democratic party that this was designed to assist Republicans in their re-election bids. This is a blatantly partisan law,” Democratic Floor Leader Maida Coleman, D-St. Louis said. “To me, the removal of the ballot is just another really bad component of a horrible bill.”
JEFFERSON CITY, Missouri — This election season, Missouri voters will no longer be able to choose a straight-ticket option. Instead, they’ll have to vote for candidates and ballot measures individually.
Elimination of straight-ticket voting was included in the controversial voter ID law passed by the legislature earlier this year. While the state Supreme Court threw out the photo ID requirement, it left alone the ban on straight-ticket voting.
“Of all the complaints against voter ID, no one complained about this part,” said Sen. Luann Ridgeway, R-Smithville, who had sponsored a similar straight-ticket voting ban. Ridgeway said that she got the idea for the bill after talking to voters.
“(Straight party voting) was a silly way to cast a vote,” Ridgeway said. “To go blindly in and punch one punch and vote for 35 people, everyone from state auditor to president, doesn’t make sense.”
“I think this will produce a more informed electorate,” she said.
Ridgeway said that the bill faced little opposition from the legislature last spring.
“I don’t even recall being asked to stand up and defend it,” she said.
But Democratic Floor Leader Maida Coleman, D-St. Louis, said that the absence of a straight party ballot this year has opposition from much of her party.
“This is a blatantly partisan law,” Coleman said. “To me, the removal of the ballot is just another really bad component of a horrible bill.”
Coleman said that the law was created to keep Democrats from voting.
“We know that the majority of straight-party voters are Democrats,” she said. “There’s much belief in the Democratic party that this was designed to assist Republicans in their re-election bids.”
According to Stacie Temple, a spokeswoman for the secretary of state, 1 million straight-party ballots were cast in the 2004 election. Democratic ballots outnumbered Republican ballots by only 96,457.
MU political science professor John Petrocik said he agrees that the lack of a straight-ticket option this year will be an advantage for Republicans.
“Democrats are less likely to be motivated to go through and vote for every Democratic party candidate on the ballot,” he said. He added that research hadn’t been conducted on the topic in 20 years, but “this has been conventional wisdom since then.”
“My guess is that this will work to the disadvantage of Democrats this year, although we don’t know how much,” he said.
Coleman said that she hopes the impact of no straight-ticket voting is slight.
“My goal is to help educate people that they just need to spend a little extra time in the booth to vote for every person they want to elect,” she said.
Although voters may be spending more time in the booth, Boone County Clerk Wendy Noren said she does not expect longer lines at the polls this year.
“I’m sure people will complain,” she said. “But we don’t anticipate it making much of a difference on our end.”
What's funny is that I used to be a per-race, considerate conservative voter, but last election I decided to stick it to the dems, no matter what their beliefs and voted straight pubbie. LOL.
dead people effected the most..........
“I think this will produce a more informed electorate,” [Sen. Luann Ridgeway, R-Smithville] said.
"More-informed" to the extent people can recognize the difference between "R" and "D". Even though Sen. Ridgeway sports and "R" by her name, she's a freaking idiot.
Two sure ways to get a more informed electorate are to (1) reinstate property requirements for voting and (2) make ALL workers pay some income tax. Over half of the workers in the country pay zero income taxes and, as free loaders with no vested stake in the system, always vote "D" to keep their gravy rolling in. These voters have zero interest in becoming a more-informed electorate because they are voting their narrow financial self-interest.
Never knew there was such a thing!
This needs to be outlawed everywhere - just one more ruse the dems have had for stacking the decks.
If we whittle down the fraud schemes one by one - (Voter ID being paramount) I believe everyone will be quite surprised at just how many fewer real democrats are out there. (After all, they have been aborting themselves for decades)
I look at the inability of the liberals to keep up enough viewers to maintain a show, either on TV or radio - even Colmes of H & C - can't keep a radio or TV program going on his own, the only reason he has a venue at all is as a foil to Hannity (which is great, because he is so obnoxious that it shows a clear contrast between the conservative and liberal thought processes.) -
Anyway - if the libs don't have enough TRUE numbers out there to maintain their media outlets - then where are all the lib votes coming from?
Cut out the fraud - and that will be the end of them - IF we get our buts out there and keep them out of power NOW - giving us two more years to continue winnowing out the voting fraud setups.
Also makes for quicker ballot stuffing ala Florida.
We should make people write in the name for each candidate and mispellings are not counted.
(Sarcasm.. kind of)
Really? I hadn't heard that.
“Democrats are less likely to be motivated to go through and vote for every Democratic party candidate on the ballot,” he said. He added that research hadn’t been conducted on the topic in 20 years, but “this has been conventional wisdom since then.”
Wow....
I read where deomcrats are banning this practice in states where they no longer have the majority, to help their candidates, by forcing everyone to vote for each individual race. When the democrats were in power, they passed this option of allowing a one party vote, but now that they are not in power, they are moving to quickly ban it as an option.
I remember reading about it in the Columbia Tribune when it was going on.
I think it was just for the hallibut...
Could it be that the REAL problem with the new Ballots is that many of Democrat Base can't READ? If they have to go through all of the names, they will be guessing who to vote for. It was much easier when the Democrats could coach their "Base" Voters to go in and put the "X" on the Ballot and be done with it. I'm guessing they're right about their Voters staying home, why would they want to spend an entire afternoon in a Polling Booth trying to figure out what all those letters mean!
Ya must haf bin in Jon carries armeeee!
And if you don't you'll be too damn stupid to punch chads, read a ballot, or figure out how to vote straight Democrat one condidate at a time."
Wow!! Forbidding straight party ticket, use of new and sophisticated electronic voting machines, confusion over whether people have to bring photo ID to the polls, combined with six years of Dems complaining that their vottes arent counted, it looks like our voter suppression program is working. Inner city folk are going to stay home. Voting is getting too difficult. I mean do we have stand in line to vote and then have to vote each office. Hey I aint got all day. My welfare check is due today. (Sarcasm Intended) :-)
“This is a blatantly partisan law,” Coleman said. “To me, the removal of the ballot is just another really bad component of a horrible bill.”
Coleman said that the law was created to keep Democrats from voting.
Translation: "My constitutents are too damn stupid to do anything other than mark the 'D' box."
They be too dumb to remember more than one letter. They remember McCaskill plus x, y, and z.
"straight-ticket "
Oh.....I thought that was a third party...
This law hurts the frauds who want to vote more than once (takes more time), and it hurts the frauds who ram a rod through a stack of paper ballots to punch them all out at once.
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