STV

X - Straight Ticket Voting

Some states ballots have a box at the top of the ballot enabling a voter to check that box to vote straight party ticket or to vote for all the candidates of that party. As some would put it, “yellow dog” voting made easier. By having the system itself encourage this type of voting we are inherently discouraging the kind of political participation that the Framers wanted and that were their inherent reasons for creating more representative voting systems like the Electoral College or the practice of state legislatures electing US Senators prior to the seventeenth amendment. Six states still have this provision on their ballots. The states with STV are Alabama, Indiana, Michigan, Kentucky, Oklahoma, and South Carolina. Utah is the most recent state to abolish the STV and removed the option in a legislative vote in 2020. While the partisan split in Washington is very real, voters are much more independent minded than in years past. It isn’t difficult for a partisan minded voter to simply go down the list marking each candidate of their party. Pennsylvania may have changed recently. For more information see:

https://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/straight-ticket-voting.aspx#1

Category: State