GraceNotes: Voting without thinking
When I first learned about straight-ticket voting in my summer school civics class, I was confused about why it existed. Even after I had read more about it and considered the opposing perspective, I still could not bring myself to understand why straight-ticket voting still existed.
Straight-ticket voting is a method of filling out ballot in which a voter can check one box, Republican or Democratic, to vote for all of the candidates in that party. As of now, Alabama, Indiana, Michigan, Kentucky, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Utah offer straight-party ballots. Pennsylvania is the most recent state to abolish straight-ticket voting this year.
According to the Pennsylvania Capital-Star, Pennsylvanian Democrats had opposed ending straight-ticket voting because “low-information voters,” mostly Democrats, would only vote for the presidential and governor candidates and overlook lesser known races, also known as voter fatigue.
Although it may speed up the voting process and get more people to vote for lesser-publicized races, voters should not sacrifice well-informed political participation for convenience. It is true that some voices will not be heard in smaller elections, but that would be better than having an outcome that misrepresents some views.
In a way, straight-ticket voting encourages the increasing polarizing political parties in the U.S. Offering this method of voting only paints the political field as a stark red or blue, Republican or Democratic. However, belonging to a political party shouldn’t have to mean that one cannot vote for members of the opposing party.
According to the Pew Research Center, Democrats and Republicans are more ideologically divided than ever, meaning that there is less overlap between the two parties. This is reflected in many of the political happenings, such as House members voting along party lines on the rules for the impeachment inquiry.
In this time of deep partisanship, we should be working toward being able to consider the benefits of voting for the opposing party and choosing a candidate from the opposing party if they happen to be what the times call for. Straight-ticket voting, on the other hand, encourages voters to stick to party guidelines for the sake of convenience and speed.
Even under one general label of a political party, there is still a wide range of ideologies by individual candidates. If voters aren’t afraid to vote for a candidate who they believe in, even if he or she is in the opposing party, then the party as a group may change for the better.
Politics is much more complex than pitting Republicans against Democrats, Democrats against Republicans. Voters need to research their candidates before casting their votes, hopefully pushing the nation to enact what the people really want.
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