SCOTUS upholds Michigan's Straight Ticket Voting

[wolfsblood07]

It doesn't matter to me whether it most affects whites, or blacks, or jews, or protestant christians, or the rich, or the poor, or the young, or the old. Voting rules should not be based on a certain group's unwillingness to read a ballot. If you don't want to read the ballot, then you shouldn't be voting.

Uh, banning straight ticket voting is not voter suppression. If people can't even be bothered to read the ballot, do we really want them voting on our future?

Not everyone is a faux moderate hero like you. Some people overwhelmingly prefer one party over the other.

That's fine. They can just vote for every Democrat or Republican individually. At least they'll become more informed about who is in office.

What is the problem with straight ticket voting?  It's quick and easy.  When I lived in Michigan I had no idea other states didn't have that option at the top of the ballot. 

[Kingpoleon]

It doesn't matter to me whether it most affects whites, or blacks, or jews, or protestant christians, or the rich, or the poor, or the young, or the old. Voting rules should not be based on a certain group's unwillingness to read a ballot. If you don't want to read the ballot, then you shouldn't be voting.

Uh, banning straight ticket voting is not voter suppression. If people can't even be bothered to read the ballot, do we really want them voting on our future?

Not everyone is a faux moderate hero like you. Some people overwhelmingly prefer one party over the other.

That's fine. They can just vote for every Democrat or Republican individually. At least they'll become more informed about who is in office.

Leaning your way on this.  If there's a Vitter vs. JBE or Quinn vs. Rauner style race somewhere in there, it should serve everyone well to require even strong partisans to make an individual decision on it.

That's a pretty racist thing to say.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Huzzah! If you say "Read the ballot!" as an argument against straight ticket, what good does that do? In this election, I'd vote for Cookie Monster over most Republicans around here, so I myself am going to just check the straight ticket box and be done. It'll take me five seconds to fill out my ballot instead of the 15 minutes and half the ink in my pen it took to fill in all the ovals on my ballot in 2014.

Which Republican did you vote for in 2014?

I can only speak for myself, but I speak as someone who rarely votes straight-ticket Democratic despite strongly supporting the existence of a straight-ticket ballot option (I'm sure it would greatly reduce lines in Columbus, Cleveland, etc).  I voted for the Green Party nominee for Governor in 2014 (although I admittedly forgot to do my research and make sure their nominee wasn't some whack job like Jill Stein, oh well).  I also voted for whichever Republican (I forget her name) was running against Mary Jo Kilroy for some judgeship.  Kilroy is awful in a generic machine hack sort of way (probably a very reliable back-bencher vote in Congress, but she'd be a terrible judge imo) and AFAIK, the Republican hadn't done/said anything that bad.  Most importantly, the Republican nominee had a far better grasp of local issues in Franklin County Kilroy clearly assumed she'd glide on in due to name ID and partisan voting, and her campaign was basically "hey all, I'm a Democrat, so vote for me!  K, thx, bye!").  Fortunately, Kilroy narrowly lost that election (it was 52-48% IIRC).  

I'm going to vote write-in or skip the Senate race this year b/c of Strickland's race-baiting and I'm also going to vote Republican for Franklin County Treasurer.  Franklin County voters were in an anti-incumbent mood in the Democratic primary and while they swept out some awful incumbents: Franklin County Commissioner Paula Brooks (paranoid crazy person who can't seem to work well with anyone in the county government although she was beaten by the corrupt, but not totally incompetent Kevin Boyce), County Recorder Terry Brown (completely incompetent), and County Sheriff Zach Scott (all around HP), they also booted the longtime County Treasurer in favor of some random woman no one had heard of who has three bankruptcies and was convicted of purchasing cocaine (among other things)

In 2010, I voted for Husted for Secretary of State (he offered far more concrete and detailed plans than his opponent for increasing voter turnout and at the time, he didn't run as an extremist and in fairness he was a pretty good SoS AFAIK until he sold out in 2012, I don't think he's that bad a guy though.  Husted is definitely someone you can work with even if you're a Democrat and if we have to have a Republican replace Kasich, I'd definitely prefer that it be Husted for this very reason...even if I'd still obviously prefer most Democrats to Husted) and I believe I voted write-in in the State Treasurer's race (either that or I simply skipped it, I forget which I ended up doing, but Mandel is Mandel and Boyce is pretty corrupt).

In other words, I don't blindly vote straight-ticket Democratic, but I still think it's crazy not to include a straight-ticket option and definitely would've used it were it available in 2012.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

It doesn't matter to me whether it most affects whites, or blacks, or jews, or protestant christians, or the rich, or the poor, or the young, or the old. Voting rules should not be based on a certain group's unwillingness to read a ballot. If you don't want to read the ballot, then you shouldn't be voting.

Uh, banning straight ticket voting is not voter suppression. If people can't even be bothered to read the ballot, do we really want them voting on our future?

Considering which communities tend to have long waiting times at the polls already, eliminating the ability to vote quickly can only make it worse, or at the very least depress voting downballot, which is where this would have the most effect anyway,  There's almost zero chance that Michigan's EV would be the tipping point in the Presidential race.

Not everyone is a faux moderate hero like you. Some people overwhelmingly prefer one party over the other.

That's fine. They can just vote for every Democrat or Republican individually. At least they'll become more informed about who is in office.

[Angel of Death]

I don't understand why this thread is in this board, as one would expect this to principally affect down-ballot elections.

[politicallefty]

I have to literally ask the question: is there any evidence of any Republican supporting laws making it easier to vote?

[‼realJohnEwards‼]

I have to literally ask the question: is there any evidence of any Republican supporting laws making it easier to vote?

You'd probably have to go back to the 19th Amendment

[Virginiá]

I have to literally ask the question: is there any evidence of any Republican supporting laws making it easier to vote?

You'd probably have to go back to the 19th Amendment

That's true, but that was so long ago. That version of the party seems lost. The GOP is now the party of the South, a region which seems to see restricting the right to vote as a time-honored tradition. Even with this amendment, the Deep South took literally generation(s) to finally ratify the amendment. LA/MS/GA/NC didn't ratify it until 1970-1980. I don't know the exact reason(s) behind that, but the optics suck at least.

As it stands now, the Republican party is all about voter suppression, as young people and minorities are most hurt by such restrictions and thus targeted by the GOP. Whenever they actually do try to make voting easier, it is usually designed to only effect people they know lean Republican.