A few weeks ago, I heard from someone I consider a reliable source that although the Michigan straight ticket voting ban had been overturned by a court, the ballots had already been printed without the straight ticket option.
Well, this morning I called the City Clerk’s office, and, if I understood correctly, the ballots for Detroit voters won’t be printed until September 24. Theoretically, there could be legal twists and turns between now and then.
Not that courts tend to move fast. Nevertheless, Paul Egan in an article in the Detroit Free Press stopped short of saying for certain that straight ticket voting will be on the ballot.
So come November, most likely but not certainly Detroit voters will probably be able to vote all Democrat by filling a single bubble (most likely), or all Republican (less likely), or, let’s go nuts and say all Green. Voters should still look over the rest of the ballot for nonpartisan candidates and proposals.
I have never used straight ticket voting, not even when I wind up voting for all Democrats anyway. But just because I don’t use it is not, by itself, a good reason to deny it to others. It would be wrong for me to demand the vegetarian dining option be taken off a conference reservation form, for example.
In any case, the few times I've voted for Republicans I've usually come to regret it (Rick Snyder the first time, that's on my conscience), and the third party candidates I've voted for had no chance.
On a purely philosophical level, I have to agree with Bill Schuette (R), the state’s Attorney General, who keeps pushing this issue through every legal avenue available to him. Voters ought to be informed about all the candidates and make their decisions one by one, and not do a blanket vote. That sounds reasonable enough.
There are some candidates who take straight ticket voters for granted. For example, Wayne State University (WSU) Board of Governors board member Marilyn Kelly (D), elected at the same time as Dana Thompson (D also).
There were two vacancies on the board, and the Democrats had put forth two candidates. Prof. Jim Woodyard, who had resigned his tenured position in 2014 out of frustration for the university’s lack of action on the Farshad Fotouhi problem, predictably failed to get the Democratic nomination for the position; it would be nice to have an engineer on the board (and it would also be nice for the WSU College of Engineering to have a real engineer as dean).
Before the election, I reached out to both Democratic candidates for the board. Thompson seemed to actually consider my concerns. I heard nothing from Kelly. So on Election Day 2015, for the WSU Board of Governors, I voted for Thompson and some Green who had no chance.
Of course Kelly was still elected, she probably thought she had enough straight ticket voters that she could afford to ignore any voters who tried to contact her. Or who knows, maybe I was the only voter who tried to contact her.
Given how the Board has acted in the past year, I remain convinced that Thompson was a good choice, and that Kelly is not the best Democrats have to offer for that particular university board.
But Schuette’s opposition to straight ticket voting isn’t philosophical, is it? In Michigan, straight ticket voting tends to benefit Democrats. I remember somewhat distinctly seeing in the newspaper, either for Gov. Jennifer Granholm’s election or re-election, that 94% of Detroit voters had voted for her and 93% had voted straight ticket.
Those voters must have felt confident in voting for Granholm, but may have been completely uninformed about the county and city Democrats their straight ticket votes helped.
If straight ticket voters voted mostly Republican, Schuette wouldn’t be fighting so hard against it. Egan points out that Michigan voters have twice rejected ballot proposals to do away with straight ticket voting.
But the state legislature outlawed straight ticket voting anyway, and stuck in a $5 million appropriation (in Michigan, an appropriation in an act prevents that act from being overturned with a ballot proposal).
Remember that Republicans have a stranglehold on the legislature due to gerrymandering. Republicans want every possible advantage, fair or unfair, over Democrats. So I strongly doubt that Schuette’s drive to fight straight ticket voting is motivated by anything remotely altruistic.
As for the argument that other states don’t have straight ticket voting, that doesn’t hold much water with me, I’m not convinced that’s a valid reason for Michigan to do away with it.
Though I’m not a Supreme Court Justice, and that’s where Schuette wants to take this case, if his previous crusade against gay marriage is any indication. If Schuette does take straight ticket voting to the Supreme Court, hopefully it won’t be until after the U. S. Senate confirms President Clinton’s nominee to replace Justice Scalia.