Should Iowa continue to offer straight-ticket voting?
Related Stories
Flags decorate the satellite voting station outside of the Hy-Vee location on 1st Ave NE on Thursday, October 4, 2012. (Kyle Grillot/The Gazette-KCRG)
More than 40 percent of Linn County voters took a shortcut on the way to casting their ballots in the Nov. 6 general election.
According to the Board of Supervisors’ official canvass Nov. 14, 43 percent of the 118,711 people who voted in Linn County voted a straight party ticket.
In Johnson County, there was a much lower rate of straight-ticket voting, according to the official canvass, also conducted Wednesday.
There, 20 percent or 15,319 Democrats and 6,457 or 8.5 percent of Republicans cast straight tickets. Overall, 76,199 people voted in Johnson County.
Iowa is one of 16 states which allow voters to vote a straight party ballot, that is, cast a ballot for everyone on the ballot listed under a particular party.
Do you think Iowa should continue to offer the option to vote a straight-ticket ballot?
-u20042.png?1366232523)
Straight ticket voting is an option. No one has to vote a straight ticket. It is also a convenience and it helps some people vote faster.
I have lived in one state without straight ticket voting, Vermont, and it definitely took longer to vote and the lines were more of a problem.
I see no advantage to taking it away and a modest disadvantage.
People who usually vote straight ticket are going to vote straight ticket whether the option is offered or not. I don’t see the point in taking it away.
I’d like to see them not put the party letter by the name and see how informed voters really are with their candidates.
A more meaningful change would be removing political party identification from the the ballot.
This would aide 3rd party candidates and encourage all voters to be better informed.
There is no reason to eliminate the option for straight ticket voting.
Nor is there any reason for eliminating party affiliation on ballots. The party affiliation of a candidate is one of the best indicators of where the candidate stands on most issues and how they will legislate. This information is important to helping voters decide who will best represent them in our government.
there is no problem in Iowa with the voting so it needs to remain as is. a person can get done so much quicker when he just has to mark the one spot for democrat instead of blacking each little circle for them. As for removing party from the names of the candidates, that would just be another thing for the republicans to find a way to trick people into voting for them.
Ken please explain why anyone would vote for a Republican due to trickery? Democrats pride themselves in voter education and turn out. How does removing party ID favor one party over another?
Well why would republicans want to remove the party from the name, unless there was something shady to be had from it. I have never known republicans to be honest and above board on things. Look at this year and their voter Id. they are always looking for something to gain an advantage cause they cant win on their policy ideas..
Ken why is this a ‘Republican’ proposal. I have presented several positive outcomes, you have disagreed for no discernible reason. How is it possible to advance positive improvements when you start with a closed mind?
Here goes the Gazette again: Creating controversy where none exists.
I disagree. This is a legitimate question.
Straight ticket voting is a shortcut. I don’t have any hard evidence to back up this claim, but it is quite apparent that it is used by some uninformed voters of both major party affiliations who have little clue of who the candidates are in the lower profile cases.
Make them darken in all the circles. Maybe it’ll make them think twice before voting for Joel Miller versus Garth Faggerbakke when they’ve never heard of either one of them and aren’t familiar with the issues. The goal shouldn’t be to make the act of voting easier, it should be making the ability to vote easier. The voting act itself, when a person is in the voting booth, should not be taken so lightly that we’re too lazy to fill in individual circles if we REALLY are supposed to care about who gets elected.
Even better are the suggestions to take away party affiliation. Party affiliation can tell you a lot, or it can tell you nothing at all. Maybe if people had to, you know, vote for candidates whose names they had to remember, they’d actually pay attention and vote for the person, rather than just the party.
Our government could at least try to be impartial and not give the two major parties a leg up….
Then again, people are people, they’d just start voting for the person with the coolest name and we’d have Max Power versus Gustav He-man in a presidential election.