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

Fri Mar 6 08:26:08 PST 2020

Many states, including many controlled by Democrats do not have straight ticket voting.  And in an era where excessive partisanship and record nationalization of state elections (Richman and Zingher 2018, Richman 2020) threatens to undermine accountability, removing party line voting hardly seems a threat to democracy.  It's more likely a service to democracy.

Jesse Richman
Associate Professor of Political Science
Old Dominion University

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From: Law-election <law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu> on behalf of D. A. Holtzman <d at LAvoteFIRE.org>
Sent: Thursday, March 5, 2020 7:57 PM
To: law-election at department-lists.uci.edu <law-election at department-lists.uci.edu>
Subject: Re: [EL] New Voting Rights Lawsuit -- TEXAS Straight Ticket Voting

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 complaint here<https://nam03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.democracydocket.com%2Ftexas%2F&data=02%7C01%7Cjrichman%40odu.edu%7C4125a83281724a12f76d08d7c169803f%7C48bf86e811a24b8a8cb368d8be2227f3%7C0%7C0%7C637190531180671296&sdata=gaTJiSwAv5ZrisQmi62y6W7xLBe%2F3RwpKb5ArlJKlo8%3D&reserved=0>.

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 it here<https://nam03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.democracydocket.com%2F2020%2F02%2Fhttps-email-perkinscoie-com-27-2266-compose-email-february_draft-aspsidblankform%2F&data=02%7C01%7Cjrichman%40odu.edu%7C4125a83281724a12f76d08d7c169803f%7C48bf86e811a24b8a8cb368d8be2227f3%7C0%7C0%7C637190531180681291&sdata=klN1Wy%2FyzrA8FZ41nLcHvp%2BD8DNk9WZkGKOuDpqBaAc%3D&reserved=0>.

—

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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