Robert Healey, a candidate for Lieutenant Governor, has filed a lawsuit to end straight-party voting.  Healey's suit makes many good points.

"The use of the party lever in conjunction with optic scanning technology has created several discernable and distorted voting patterns," the lawsuit alleges. "Using the optic scan ballot, no marks are visible as to the vote cast in each race. As a result, communities that hold non-partisan elections demonstrate a marked decline in civic participation, showing that voters often fail to cast votes in non-partisan municipal contests, mistakenly believing that the party lever has triggered votes in all races."

With the older voting machines, an "x" would appear indicating to the voter that the party lever had cast a vote in a particular race but with the newer technology, this doesn't happen, the lawsuit says.

In addition, the lawsuit alleges, the newer optic scanning technology does not allow a person who votes a straight ticket to abstain from casting a vote in a particular race.

"Plaintiffs allege that the existing Rhode Island ballot format [for straight ticket voting] causes great ballot confusion to the extent that it denies voters the right to vote guaranteed under the United States Constitution," the suit says. it also alleges that "the established political parties are the sole beneficiaries of the straight party ticket voting" and "are favored over Independent candidates."

     I'm glad to see someone challenge this archaic system.  From the name of this blog, you probably wouldn't be surprised to find out I'm a Republican.  Despite this, I have never used the straight-party option, and there have been occasions when I haven't voted for a Republican.  I consider each race individually, then cast my vote.  Is asking voters to actually take a few extra seconds to address each race really that much to ask?

     I'm currently running for State Representative in district 13 (Providence/Johnston), and I would certainly benefit from the absence of straight-party voting.  With that said, I would much rather have votes cast for or against me based on me as a candidate, rather than who is running at the top of the ticket.  Removing this option does nothing but force the most intellectually lazy in our society to spend a few extra seconds fulfilling their civic duty.