Michigan seeks to block straight-ticket voting
Source: Lyle Denniston Law News
The top state election official in Michigan asked the Supreme Court on Friday to put back into effect, for this year’s election, a law banning voters from casting one vote for all of a party’s candidates on the ballot — that is, voting a straight ticket.
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After a federal trial judge blocked the law against casting a single vote for all of a party’s candidates, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit refused to delay that order. Under an unusual procedure in the Sixth Circuit Court, the Michigan official then asked the en banc Circuit Court — all 15 active judges — to take on the case. That request was rejected by a 9-to-6 vote; it would have required a majority of the active judges to grant such review.
A panel of the Sixth Circuit Court had ruled that the challengers to the straight-ticket ban were likely to win when the case went to trial, on the basis that the ban probably violates the equal protection guarantee of the Fourteenth Amendment, because of its impact on black voters.
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The trial judge had ruled that the ban would lead to voter confusion, since there would be no way to make the choice to vote for all of a party’s candidates at once, and that it would likely lead to longer lines at polling stations because of the difficulty of marking a choice for every office on he ballot.
Read more: http://lyldenlawnews.com/2016/09/02/michigan-seeks-to-block-straight-ticket-voting/
Michigan recently passed a law that eliminated straight-ticket voting effective January 2016. Straight-ticket voting had been available in the state since 1891.
Michigan's request went to Justice Kagan, who requested additional information be filed from both sides. She can rule on the motion herself, but will likely refer it to the full court, as Roberts did last week with the NC appeal. If they deadlock 4-4, as they did in the NC case, the injunction will remain in place until the matter is tried, whenever that might be.
Edited to add: The district court judge concluded that black voters would be disproportionately harmed by the elimination of straight ticket voting. The plaintiffs presented a study that showed that as the % of African-Americans in an area increased, so did the percentage of straight ticket voting. Surprise! The switch was likely to increase waiting times to vote, more so in urban areas where there were more people. Also, the state cutely decided to still use a heading with the party name at the top of each column of candidates, which the court noted might well cause voters to simply check the topmost candidate, thinking that would be the box for a straight-ticket check-off.
The original decision is here: http://cases.justia.com/federal/district-courts/michigan/miedce/2:2016cv11844/311198/25/0.pdf?ts=1469276381
The appeal filing is here:
http://lyldenlawnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/16A225StayApplication.pdf
= new reply since forum marked as read
and have had it for like forever.
I can't speak for the rest of the state but here in Philly, it trickled over from the days of the big lever machines where you could pull down the top lever and that automatically selected everything down the column. The non-partisan stuff was usually advertised and was off to the side (e.g., ballot questions). The old machines were monstrosities like this -
The newer ones are touch-surface (I wouldn't call them "touch screen" because they are not screens but have leds next to the names) -
The ballot questions are blocked off on the right side in the above image.
... they'd demand it.
None of that "diversity" nonsense on our ballots, thank you very much.
