“Straight Ticket
Voting” NOT very useful to local Democrats
By
Will Collette
From the 2010 Rhode Island ballot. DON'T use this if you want to be 100% certain your vote will count for local candidates. |
One
of the enduring beliefs
of the Charlestown Citizens Alliance (CCA Party) is that straight party
voting, often called “the Master Lever,” puts them and other political
organizations not recognized as statewide political parties at a terrible
disadvantage. They say it gives an unfair disadvantage to Democrats and that,
they say, is undemocratic.
Like
so much the CCA Party believes, the truth is different than what they believe.
November
4 will be the last time Rhode Island voters will have the option to use the
“straight ticket voting” option. Its anachronistic nickname, the “Master Lever”
harks back to the days when we had voting machines where you flipped levers.
The
Charlestown Citizens Alliance (CCA Party) has been campaigning against the
so-called Master Lever, following the lead of CCA leader and Town Council
member Dan Slattery’s mentor, former Moderate Party leader Ken Block. The CCA
Party has argued long and hard that the Master Lever unfairly benefits
Democrats.
They
get no argument from Charlestown Democrats who also supported an end to the
master lever, or from Rep. Donna Walsh (D) and Senator Cathie Cool Rumsey (D)
who both voted to eliminate the master lever.
However,
what the CCA Party seems to have missed is that they have also benefited from straight-party
voting.
Now,
how is that possible? Here’s why: all Charlestown’s local elected positions except
Moderator – Town Council, Planning Commission and Chariho School Committee –
are multi-seat positions. That means that every election cycle, there are at
least two open seats for each position.
Under
the state’s election rules, straight party voting applies primarily to races
where there is only one slot to fill, such as President, Governor, state
Representative or state Senator.
They
do not apply to non-partisan elected positions, as in the case of Charlestown’s
Planning Commission. Even though most candidates come with a party endorsement,
they are still considered non-partisan when it comes to the way the voting
system works.
The rules are spelled out in the Voter’s Handbook from the Secretary of State’s Office which was just delivered to most voters’ households by mail. Here's what it says in the Secretary of State's Voter Handbook for 2014 (page 27):
For
other multi-candidate local positions, such as Town Council or Chariho School
Committee, straight party voting gets complicated, as you’ll see below.
In
2012, there were lots of people who thought their straight ticket choice, let’s
say for the Democratic Party, also meant they were voting for Democrats for
Town Council and Planning Commission too.
They were probably
wrong.
Their
straight ticket vote did not go to any of the four Democrats who ran for the
Planning Commission.
For
Town Council, if the voter voted straight party ticket, but also added two more
votes to make a total of five (e.g. in 2012, for Greg Avedisian or Lisa DiBello), that voter
inadvertently wiped out the
straight-ticket votes for Democrats Paula Andersen, Tom Ferrio and Tim Quillen.
The
rules are laid out in the Voter’s Handbook from the
Secretary of State’s Office (page 27) which was just delivered to most voters’
households by mail. However, we had to call the Board of Elections twice to get a straight answer about
how straight-ticket voting works with local multi-candidate elections.
We
can now say with confidence that some 2012 Democratic voters who thought they
were also voting for local Democrats when they voted straight ticket, didn’t
have their votes counted for local Democrats.
We
know that’s the case for Planning unless those straight-ticket voters went into
the ballot and marked specific choices for Planning.
If
all those 2012 straight-ticket votes had actually gone to Democrats running for
Planning Commission, we’d probably have a Democratic majority on Planning.
Platner would have been a Planning Commission back-bencher without getting help from the Master Lever. |
Frank
Glista and Melina Lodge would have come in second and third, with over 1,900
votes each, giving Democrats the majority on Planning for the first time since
the world was young.
Democrat
Mike Breton would have come in sixth, missing the cut by less than 30 votes.
The
Town Council outcome is more complicated. The three Democrats for Council in
2012 – Paula Andersen, Tim Quillen and Tom Ferrio – would have gotten credit
for all the straight-ticket Democratic votes provided the voter didn't make any other picks for Council.
That is, unless the voter also picked one or two more candidates to flesh out his or her selection with up to five Council choices.
That is, unless the voter also picked one or two more candidates to flesh out his or her selection with up to five Council choices.
If
the voter did that, by rule, the straight-ticket votes for Council no longer
counted and the voter had to be sure to individually vote for their Democratic
choices. We have no way of knowing how many of the 600 or so Charlestown
straight-ticket voters had their straight party votes dropped in 2012. But if
many or most of them did, we could also have come out of the 2012 election with
a Democratic majority on the Town Council.
Almost
certainly, Paula Andersen would have won enough votes to beat Boss Tom Gentz
for the Council Presidency. Tim Quillen and Tom Ferrio might have made it, too.
Ah,
what might have been.
For
this final election outing for the “Master Lever” or “straight-ticket voting,”
let’s not let these awkward rules of procedure spoil the democratic process.
I
actually agree that the best solution to make sure your vote counts the way you
want it to count is to:
- Don’t use the straight-ticket arrow at all.
- Make deliberate, hopefully informed, choices of who you really want in office.
- When it comes to the local, multi-candidate offices of Council, Chariho School Committee and Planning Committee, only vote for those candidates you think are the right people for the job.
- You don’t have to cast a vote for each opening. Your vote still counts if you only vote for three candidates – hopefully the Dems – for Town Council. The term for this is “bullet voting.”
- If you don’t like any of the candidates for Planning or School Committee, don’t vote for them. You don’t have to. You can leave it blank but you also have the option of writing in the name of someone you really want.
Write-ins
are generally pretty ineffective, except when they’re not.
Just ask Deborah A.
“Deb” Carney, who was surprised to find herself elected to the Chariho School Committee just a few
years back. Enough Charlestown voters wrote her in because they preferred her to what
was offered. Even though she wasn’t running. Deb also served with distinction on the Town Council.
NOTE: even though two-term Councilor Lisa DiBello has announced her withdrawal from the Council race, she will still be on the ballot. She has not filed a withdrawal with the Board of Elections. In fact, because she failed to file her campaign disclosure form due on October 7, she is listed as in violation for the past due report and is racking up fines. The BOE still lists her campaign as "active."
There's more involved in withdrawing than just telling the Westerly Sun.