On Nov. 8, Michigan voters will still have the chance to vote straight ticket after an attempt this year by Gov. Rick Snyder and Republican lawmakers to eliminate this option for voters.
Last month, the Supreme Court rejected Michigan’s attempt to ban straight ticket voting.
The Department of Elections has defined straight, split and mixed party voting as the following:
- Straight Ticket: Vote the party of your choice and nothing further need to be done in the partisan section of the ballot.
- Split Ticket: You may vote a straight ticket AND vote for individual candidates of your choice.
- Mixed Ticket: Vote for the individual candidates of your choice in each office. The Nonpartisan and Proposal sections of the ballot must be voted individually.
Michigan voters have had the option to vote straight ticket since 1891. This 125-year old law has been a point of contention for legislatures who feel it is bias and makes voters less informed.
Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette is against straight ticket voting. He said, “Having voters actually cast a vote for their chosen candidate — rather than blindly voting for all candidates of a party — is the very act of voting, so it cannot rationally be characterized as a burden on the right to vote.”
In January, Gov. Rick Snyder supported the Republican-led bill by signing it into law because he said he believes it would benefit Michigan voters.
“As governor, I have strived to put people before politics and strongly encourage voters to do the same,” Snyder said. “Michigan joins 40 other states that require voters to select an individual for each elective office, rather than simply selecting a political party,” Snyder said.
Legislators, mostly democrats, argued that the bill would not benefit voters and instead it would create confusion and longer lines on Election Day.
State Rep. Sheldon Neeley believes the creation of this bill was an attempt to alienate African American voters and is a violation of the Voting Rights Act.
“This law would disenfranchise many voters in the African American Community, and it was done with bad intent to do just that,” Neeley said. “This is nothing more than an effort, by law and lawmakers, to form another impediment to African American voters.”
In July, a temporary injunction was filed by U.S. District Judge Gershwin Drain of the Eastern District of Michigan to block the ban. Drain agrees that the ban is discriminatory and would disproportionally affect Michigan’s African American voters.
“African Americans are much more likely to vote Democrat than other ethnic groups, and many feel this is largely due to racially charged political stances taken by Republicans on the local, state and national level,” the judge said.
“The real question that the court must answer is whether the burdens caused by P.A. 268 are in part caused by or linked to social and historical conditions that have produced or currently produce discrimination against African Americans.”
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