What's a straight party vote?

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lylenorg	What's a straight party vote?	Lead	[-]
Posts: 5148 (10/28/08 5:47 PM) Viable Strip Club Evangilist Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Tags : None I was reading something some states having a ballot with a straight party box and then another box for the president? How do these ballots work. ie. Can you check of Democrack on the Straight-Party part of the ballot and then still pick Mccain? Where does the party vote go to? Enquiring foreigners need to know. Save a Cowboy, ride a Redhead.
Sarawaraclara		#1	[-]
Posts: 13489 (10/28/08 5:49 PM) on a personal mission to be a cunt Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	I don't think you just check off Republican or Democrat and they are automatically filled in... I think they put all the candidates for each party on the same side of the ballot so that it's easier to just vote Republican all the way down, or Democrat all the way down. You say I'm a bitch like it's a bad thing...
lylenorg		#2	[-]
Posts: 5149 (10/28/08 6:08 PM) Viable Strip Club Evangilist Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Actually, you're kind of right and kind of wrong. I found this. It's kind of scary how it works and I can see how first time voters would struggle with the system. It's also kind of scary how the article implys that the system is skewed to favour the Republican Party. A an obviously biased article yes, but still scary. It's a long article, but for Bangabong, a must-read. Save a Cowboy, ride a Redhead.
prairiequeen		#3	[-]
Posts: 1290 (10/28/08 6:11 PM) Resident Lunatic Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	We have that in Wisconsin. At the top of the ballot are a list of all the parties that have candidates in the election. If you vote for a party it will count a vote for each candidate for each office of that party. It is for people who are staunch party followers and in my opinion lazy. You do not HAVE to pick a party, you can pick and choose on every office between the different parties if you want to vote that way. You then just don't choose a party. HOWEVER. If you vote for a particular party and then vote for a person from another party for a particular office, it voids the "vote for everyone in this party" choice and you have only one vote for whoever you voted for in that office. We use optecs in Wisconsin and they check them with every combination of possible votes to make sure they tabulate correctly. If you mark one mark for the party, it will show a vote for the person running for every office on the ballot in that party. I work at the polls so I have seen the tests first hand. Edited to Add - We use paper ballots. The optec only READS or scans the ballot, it is NOT electronic voting. There may be problems with electronic voting, but there is not with the paper ballots and the optec scanners. Last Edited By: prairiequeen 10/28/08 6:15 PM. Edited 2 times.
jane1958		#4	[-]
Posts: 30226 (10/28/08 6:17 PM) double trouble Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	I have never seen or heard of those. Interesting
lylenorg		#5	[-]
Posts: 5150 (10/28/08 7:11 PM) Viable Strip Club Evangilist Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Prairie. The article eludes to a few things ... 1. People select a Party and assume that if they don't make a choice below that everyone belonging to that party is a vote for them. The article goes on to say that people don't realize that changing 1 vote nullfys the Party Choice. I can see people making that wrong assumption. States we these types of ballots have a much higher rate of "non" votes. 2. The article further goes on to say that optic scanners and electronic votes are being miscounted for the same reasons. 3. The article is tilted towards the Democrats - it does accuse the system of being biased for the Republican Party at least in New Mexico. Before the republicans jump all over the biasedness of it all, it still doesn't negate 1 and 2. Regardless of number 3, it is a very poorly designed ballot. Although the average person coould probably figure it out, we do have to realize that about half the people voting are under the average intelligence - that's why it's called "average". Thus the ballots should be designed for dummies, not average people.
lylenorg		#6	[-]
Posts: 5150 (10/28/08 7:12 PM) Viable Strip Club Evangilist Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Edit a double post. Apparently I clicked the "party" toggle rather than the "edit" toggle and Yuku counted my post twice. Save a Cowboy, ride a Redhead. Last Edited By: lylenorg 10/28/08 7:14 PM. Edited 1 times.
Wilkin		#7	[-]
Posts: 4141 (10/28/08 7:13 PM) Piecemaker Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	In Pennsylvania it's referred to as "pulling the lever". (back in ancient days, there actually was a single lever that would activate all the individual levers for the specific party candidates for each office) You'd be in and out of the voting booth in a jif. I've only done it once, back in the mid 80's when I was so disgusted with GOP policies that I pulled the Democrat lever in protest. The upshot was that the Republican congressman in my district, not a bad guy in comparison to most of his party, was defeated by a pro-life Democrat I never would have supported otherwise. I'm tempted to repeat it this go-round though, as a protest against the conservative faction that seems to prevail in the GOP, but there are some smaller office Publicans that I actually do like and would like to see continue in office.
prairiequeen		#8	[-]
Posts: 1291 (10/28/08 10:37 PM) Resident Lunatic Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	lylenorg wrote: Prairie. The article eludes to a few things ... 1. People select a Party and assume that if they don't make a choice below that everyone belonging to that party is a vote for them. The article goes on to say that people don't realize that changing 1 vote nullfys the Party Choice. I can see people making that wrong assumption. States we these types of ballots have a much higher rate of "non" votes. True - If you don't make any choice except the party designation everyone belonging to that party will get a vote. It is not really higher because it will be caught and the voter will have a choice of what they want to do. If you make any other vote on the ballot that is for a candidate of a different party or not party affiliated (these are mostly local offices) you nullify the original party vote. However, the optec will tell you that you have undervoted and spit your ballot back out. You may choose to mark a different ballot (you are allowed 3 chances to get it right) with the first ballot being destroyed, or you can insist that the ballot you marked be taken and the cheif inspector will force the optec to take the ballot and only the individual you voted for not the party will be counted. There is a specific statement they make when they do this. People do undervote on a ballot quite often and for many reasons. There are people who only vote for the president and no one else. That ballot will also be initially rejected as undervoted and have to be overriden. There are some people who refuse to vote for an office if they don't know the candidates, or if there is not a contested election. So there are many reasons to have an undervoted ballot and not all of them are because of party voting. 2. The article further goes on to say that optic scanners and electronic votes are being miscounted for the same reasons. They are not miss counted on the optec. The optec is not electronic voting - it is electronic counting because they are paper ballots that are hand marked. There is a great deal of difference between electronic voting and electronic counting of paper ballots. With the optec the ballots are counted exactly as they should be for the way the voter marked the ballot. We really do test every concievable option for the ballots the week before the election at every polling place with the software that will be used by the optec to count in the election. These tests are open to the public and you can see the test ballots go through the machine and the results which MUST match with the state election boards results for that batch of ballots. So, no - there is no chance of the optec miscounting. Do people mismark ballots? Yes. Do they insist on voting their mismarked ballot? Sometimes. It's their right to be stupid and the inspectors have their hands tied on what they can say to a voter. It is very clear what you can and cannot say to someone in a polling place. The last thing you want is a perception that the inspectors are telling someone who to vote for. 3. The article is tilted towards the Democrats - it does accuse the system of being biased for the Republican Party at least in New Mexico. Before the republicans jump all over the biasedness of it all, it still doesn't negate 1 and 2. I have no idea about New Mexico, but in Wisconsin that is not true. I believe the reason for this is that the Parties might be listed on the ballot in alphbetical order so the Republican party may be the last party listed, but I don't see the Green Party or the Libertarians complaining that the Democrats are listed first. Regardless of number 3, it is a very poorly designed ballot. Although the average person coould probably figure it out, we do have to realize that about half the people voting are under the average intelligence - that's why it's called "average". Thus the ballots should be designed for dummies, not average people. We don't have trouble with this, and I have been working the polls for a number of years. These are not exactly brain surgeons that come through the line and they seem to get it. There are some of them that I wouldn't trust to walk my dog, but they manage to vote quite well.
Teen LaQueefah		#9	[-]
Posts: 55 (10/29/08 12:09 AM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	A straight party vote is one that doesn't include a vote for Congressman Barney Frank.
Downpuppy		#10	[-]
Posts: 2830 (10/29/08 7:35 PM) Hey Ho! Let's Go! Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Then there's North Carolina. There, a straight party vote only covers some offices. They don't tell you which ones. For example, President is not covered by a straight party vote. Republicans spend more time developing ways to prevent people from voting than they do figuring out ways to get people to vote for them.
incrediblegobstopper		#11	[-]
Posts: 27691 (10/31/08 12:08 PM) Satan's Little Helper Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	I voted this morning, and it was probably the first time I did a straight party voted. Usually there's at least one from the other party that I'll vote for.

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What's a straight party vote?

What's a straight party vote?

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