[EL] New Voting Rights Lawsuit -- TEXAS Straight Ticket Voting

[D. A. Holtzman]

STV?C’mon, that’s Single Transferable Vote.Get a new acronym!
How about PLV, for Party Line Voting?
(Machines have had party lever voting, a form of PLV.)

Whether someone engages in PLV can be too easy to observe.That’s a large 
part of why it’s a good idea to have curtains around voting booths.But 
even behind curtains, with paper ballots it would be difficult to 
introduce a required delay to de-differentiate the outward appearances 
of PLV and careful-choice thoughtful voting (CCTV ... oops!).

And it’s not so much voters who appreciate the “significant amount of 
time [PLV] saves voters when casting a ballot” as it is elections 
officials.Where there are significant lines, casting a ballot (or more 
to the point, marking choices) ordinarily takes a small proportion of 
the time voters spend at polling places.

Anyway, it’s hard to believe that people have a fundamental right to 
vote for candidates whose names they never heard or read.

-dah


On 3/5/2020 2:44 PM, Elias, Marc (Perkins Coie) wrote:
>
> Earlier today, we filed our*fifth*voting rights lawsuit on behalf of 
> the*DSCC, DCCC*and*Texas Democratic Party*challenging a Texas voting 
> law—this time the State’s effort to end straight-ticket voting, which 
> will unjustifiably and discriminatorily burden Texans’ fundamental 
> right to vote.You can access a copy of the complainthere 
> <https://www.democracydocket.com/texas/>.
>
> Following record growth in both voter turnout and use of 
> straight-ticket voting in a State that consistently ranks at the 
> bottom of the country for voter turnout, Texas decided voting had 
> become too convenient for its citizens, and especially its minority 
> citizens. In ending a century-old voting practice that Texans have 
> relied on to exercise their most fundamental and sacred rights—the 
> rights to political participation and association—Texas has recklessly 
> created a recipe for disaster at the polls in 2020.
>
> Straight-ticket voting plays a critical role in Texas’ elections: in 
> the 2018 general election, approximately two-thirds of Texans—/more 
> than 5.6 million voters/—cast their votes using STV. Voters and 
> election administrators have come to rely on STV as an integral 
> component of the voting process that reduces voting time and minimizes 
> wait times at polling places. STV’s efficiency is particularly 
> important because Texas’ electoral ballots are among the longest in 
> the country—in Texas’ largest counties, voters are regularly asked to 
> make decisions in as many as 80 races or referendum issues. Thus, for 
> the past century, STV has allowed Texans to efficiently and 
> deliberately vote for the candidates of their choice.
>
> Even with the overwhelming use of STV in Texas and the significant 
> amount of time it saves voters when casting a ballot, Texans often 
> encounter unreasonably long polling-place lines. During the 2018 
> election, for example, Texas voters encountered hours-long waits both 
> on Election Day and during the early-voting period. And with turnout 
> in the upcoming November 2020 general election expected to be the 
> highest in decades, if not a century, Texas’ long polling-place lines 
> are poised to get much worse. Texas’ longest polling-place lines exist 
> in its most populous counties, whose populations are 
> disproportionately African-American and Hispanic. As a result, even 
> when STV is available, African-American and Hispanic voters in Texas 
> must, on average, wait longer to exercise their fundamental right to 
> vote than non-minority voters.
>
> /For those of you who are new to *this list*, welcome!  I try to send 
> out occasional updates on issues involving voting rights, 
> redistricting and related legal topics. If you haven’t had a chance to 
> read my voting rights newsletter—*On The Docket*—you can access ithere 
> <https://www.democracydocket.com/2020/02/https-email-perkinscoie-com-27-2266-compose-email-february_draft-aspsidblankform/>./
>
> —
>
> Marc Elias
>
> Perkins Coie LLP
>
> 700 13th St, NW
>
> Washington, DC 20005
>
> (202) 434-1609
>
> For scheduling, or if it is urgent, contact Allie Rothenberg: 
> arothenberg at perkinscoie.com <mailto:arothenberg at perkinscoie.com> or 
> (908) 377-7531.
>
>
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-- 
Simple Instant Runoff Election Ballot

Candidates you want to vote for, in the order you prefer them:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
(...)

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