[EL] North Carolina presidential undervotes and straight ticket device

[Charles Stewart III]

According to the data I have, the residual vote rates for North Carolina have been the following over the past four presidential elections:

2000: 3.5%
2004: 1.4%
2008: 1.0%
2012: 0.8%

-cs

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Charles Stewart III
Kenan Sahin Distinguished Professor of Political Science
Housemaster of McCormick Hall

Department of Political Science
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology
E53-449
30 Wadsworth Street
Cambridge, Massachusetts   02139

Office:  617-253-3127

From: law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu [mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] On Behalf Of Richard Winger
Sent: Thursday, July 25, 2013 5:49 PM
To: law-election at uci.edu
Subject: [EL] North Carolina presidential undervotes and straight ticket device

Although the commentary about North Carolina's current omnibus election law bill, HB 589, is overwhelmingly negative, the bill does repeal the straight-ticket device.  The North Carolina straight-ticket device, for almost 50 years, has not applied to the presidential part of the North Carolina general election ballot.  Various voting rights groups, as well as academics, have long decried the North Carolina device for causing a large undervote for president.  The Brennan Center's Lawrence Norden and Margaret Chen studied it just prior to the 2008 election.

I wonder if anyone is aware of any data on North Carolina presidential undervoting rates in 2008 and 2012?  The internet has lots of material about it in 2000 and 2004, when it hovered around 3%.

I e-mailed Lawrence Norden but got an auto reply saying he is not available until next week.

Richard Winger
415-922-9779
PO Box 470296, San Francisco Ca 94147
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