I say yes, you say no, OR People are Strange

iodine

Ohhhhh, raspberry Anything!   On the Italy trips: one scoop of chocolate and one of raspberry gelato, now that's heaven.

bluedahlia

They are the best.  Don't even need syrup.

Beesie

Athena, I was concerned that my previous post had upset you.  You may be right - it might be a presidental system vs. a parliamentary system thing.  Although let's not get into France, with it's hybrid system and all their political parties!  

I would be interested to know what percent of Americans vote one party across the board. Straight ticket voting, I think it's called.  You do have the ability to do that on the ballot, right, by just marking off one box (or something like that)?  And a question:  If during a Presidental election year the governor of a particular state is also up for election, is all the voting done on one ballot? Or are there separate ballots for the federal candidates (President, Senator, Congressperson) and the state candidates (Governor, State Senators, etc......).   

1Athena1

Beesie, I was concerned that I had upset you, and glad you are still here.

There is a single ballot, but (unlike in some parliamentary systems) your vote for the top dog is not a party commitment under our federal system. You choose people and not parties, so you must go down the list and make your indfividual pick. Thus, you can vote for a democratic president, a republican governor, an independent US senator and a Green party state rep all in the same piece of paper. The ONLY choice tied to the president is the vice-president.

I have no idea if there is even data on how many people vote for the same party all the way down. Interestingly, that figure is not what is mentioned, for some reason. The most frequently cited figure denoting party loyalty is always by candidate and not by entire ballot.

To complicate things further, even national election ballots look very different by state because US senate elections are staggered, with a third of the body up for re-election every two years (senators serve six year terms). This means that only a third of senators are chosen along with each president and each US representative (US reps only serve two year terms). States are also free to set their timetables regarding governorships and state legislatures so some people who vote for president may also have the chance to pick their state people that election year, but not others. It is a crazy patchwork, as I say, because there are so many levels of authority. 

If that wasn't complicated enough, there are also ballot initiatives which are yes/no votes, as well as elections that are non partisan, such as some mayoral elections in smaller cities. Almost the only easy generalization that can be made is that almost every election in this country is held when presidential elections are held, and in the interim two year mid-terms. 

A conscientious voter might spend about 20 minutes filling out the ballot. 

AnnNYC

Beesie (and Athena) -- old mechanical voting machines in some locations did have the option to pull a single lever to vote a "straight party ticket" and I recall this being possible in New York (or was it Wisconsin?) for all candidates on the ticket -- even in a presidential election year, for President, Governor, Senator -- whoever was up for election.  I don't recall it well, because I never wanted to do it!  Even if I were voting for all Democratic candidates, I wanted to select each candidate.

Maybe it was Wisconsin (where I lived until 1979) -- it seems to me that New York has always had more parties -- a Liberal party, Libertarian party, Conservative party, and recently a left-of-mainstream "Working Families" party.  These parties will endorse Democratic or Republican candidates if they don't run their own candidate (usually they "run their own candidate" for things like City Council seats) -- so you could, for example, pull the Working Families lever for Senator Hillary Clinton, instead of pulling the Democratic Party lever.  Kind of a poll to let politicians know  where the electorate stands on the political spectrum.

I liked the old lever voting machines, recently replaced in NYC by a paper ballot fed into a scanner...  Anyway, ballots and voting machines come in many varieties in the U.S., and a "straight party ticket" was definitely possible in the past, and maybe still is in some locales.

1Athena1

Anne, must have been before my time (not that I am any spring chicken). It would seem like a great way to rig elections though - can you imagine how those Chicago bosses or NY bosses must have liked that one-size-fits-all approach? I have voted in three states and have experienced the ballots I described earlier. I think I prefer it. I had no idea party endorsements could be so complicated. I have only experienced the one party-one endorsement system. But then, there is nothing standard about the election process in this country. I prefer this system to others though. Some parliamentary systems, for example, have you choose a candidate for Prime Minister who heads a list of people you have never heard of, so you know one person but are populating the legislature blindly.

BarbaraA

Speaking for my voting habits, I vote issues not parties. I suspect that more and more people are voting that way these days. The ones that vote, I mean.

Bren-2007

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2011/03/12/bachmann-increases-public-profile-makes-another-gaffe-in-nh-trip/

How can anyone take Bachmann seriously.  Will she ever read a history book? 

BarbaraA

I don't take her seriously. Nor do I take our Vice President seriously.

http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/completelist/0,29569,1895156,00.html

Bren-2007

I like Biden .. he's the first to admit he makes mistakes and says the wrong thing.  Bachmann just blindly forges ahead with the wrong facts.

BTW .. I have t-shirt with Biden's famous words when Obama signed the health care law.

Bren

1Athena1

I like Biden too.

BarbaraA

Oh, don't get me wrong, I like the guy. He is a likable person. I also am grateful for his service. I just can't take him seriously, not knowing what will fly out of his mouth at any given time. I mean, I cringe for him when he lets another one loose.

AnnNYC

Athena and Beesie -- you piqued my curiosity about the "straight party ticket" option, leading of course to Google, and this article:

http://www.boston.com/news/local/rhode_island/articles/2011/03/10/ri_lawmakers_consider_ending_straight_party_voting/

It says 15 states still have the straight-party option, but only names one -- Rhode Island.

EDITED TO ADD:  Wikipedia says the 15 states are:

Alabama, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Michigan, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, West Virginia and Wisconsin

BarbaraA

From Wikipedia. I found the posts interesting as well.

Alabama, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Michigan, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, West Virginia and Wisconsin

AnnNYC

Hi Barbara!  Sorry I was editing while you posted!

BarbaraA

I wonder if it means anything that 9 of 15 are red states.

1Athena1

Anne, how very interesting. I had no idea that such a thing existed. What it says is that the OPTION exists in 15 states, so does that mean you can ask for a different ballot when you go to the polls, or is there an option you check, I wonder..... As the article suggests, that is a very outdated option, IMO. I am surprised that so many people in RI actually chose it.

Beesie, maybe there is part of your answer - or not. In one small state, when given the option, a small minority chose a party line vote, which confirms other evidence suggesting scant party loyalty. I speculate that the percentage might be much lower in other states.

Alpal

If you had asked me five years ago, I would have said that I voted for the person. I'm afraid that now there is such a divide between the two parties that I'd be completely comfortable voting a straight ticket. I cannot imagine voting for a Republican. I know many people who did not vote in our last senatorial election. They could not vote for Rand Paul but were disgusted with the campaign tactics of his Dem opponent. I decided anyone was better than Paul and voted for the Dem. I feel quite comfortable that I made the right decision. 

Alpal

I was going to say that I thought we had the option to vote a straight ticket in Kentucky. Then, was afraid I wasn't remembering correctly. Aha! My memory isn't as bad as I thought!

Bren-2007

I have voted straight party ticket in the past.  Except for local bond issues.

Bren

AnnNYC

Athena, to vote straight-party with the lever machines that I recall, there was a big "master lever" at the top, and if you pulled it, all the little separate levers of that party's candidates would be pulled by the "master lever."  Then, to finalize your vote, you pulled this HUGE handle at the bottom of the machine.

Some straight-party paper ballots similarly have a big circle or box at the top that the voter can fill in, rather than the individual circles.  The Wikipedia article Barbara and I looked at says that in the 19th century, straight-party ballots were separate pieces of paper of different color for the different parties -- kind of making it obvious who you were voting for, I would think!

1Athena1

In principle I have little party allegience and vote for both the issues and the leader. The leader and his qualities matter a lot to me, since the actual development of the issues doesn't only depend on the president. Obama is and always was to the right of me and I knew that from the day I decided to throw my wholehearted support behind him. However, since I am ideologically quite liberal, it is hard to imagine that I would vote for a republican. Maybe I could vote for an Olympia Snowe or an Arnold Schwarzenegger (sp.), given the right circumstances. If Hillary had won the nomination in '08 I might have been tempted to cast a protest vote against her, but I'm not sure. McCain turned out to be an even kookier, more clueless candidate than I feared. 

Wabbit

You can vote either a straight party ticket or by individual candidates here ... it's all on the same ballot.

I do think there are a lot of straight party voters ... way too many IMO.  I hear it all the time ... somebody says they don't like candidate A but I've always been a (insert R or D) so I'll vote for them anyway.  That is how a bozo like Dan Burton goes back to Congress year after year.  His district is extremely Republican and anybody running under that R is going to win. 

I most always split my ticket ... less so than in years past though because the Republicans have gotten way too far to the right for me. 

I like Biden too.  The thing that impresses me is his character.  This is a guy who commuted home every night rather than move to DC ... for his kids sake.  And he is not rich ... ergo he has not been raking in every bit of payola he could get his hands on.  I think he is a good, intelligent, honest man.   

1Athena1

I would wager that older people tend to be more party faithful than younger people as a very general rule. But yes, there are blind party votes. I have mixed emotions about that, just as I have mixed emotions about voting against someone rather than for someone. Not a place where one wants to be.

Alpal

Older people - that would be me! I still think I vote the issues. Yes, my vote was against Rand Paul, but what was I to do?

Wabbit

I have wished there was a place on the ballot for "None of the above ... go back and find new candidates" 

However, politics has gotten so nasty with personal attacks that it is a wonder that anybody is willing to run.  And money talks louder than anything else.  We are running off the best and the brightest. 

1Athena1

Rabbit, couldn't agree more. That is what I ended up doing in '92. There is no blank vote option, but I decided to take my ballot, fold it and put it inside the box as a symbolic gesture that I had participated in the democratic process, exercised my secret ballot option, and I had the following to say about the candidates: Nothing!

Edited to add: I did think about voting for Perot in 1992. He was the person who first really brought the deficit problem to the limelight.

When you are as liberal as I am on some issues, the US will always be too far to the right, so I have to rely much more on my apparaisal of character and leadership qualities.

crazy4carrots

This is an interesting discussion and each post teaches me a little more about the U.S. voting system.  Here, where we have more than 2 parties, I wish we had the option of choosing our first, second, third and fourth choices.  The way it stands now, Candidate A has usually garnered fewer votes than the other 3 candidates put together.  With a "rating" system, the winner might be Candidate B, who received the second greatest # of first choice votes, but the greatest # of second place votes.  I think many European countries use this system.

But, more to the point:  If you had your "druthers" about the U.S. voting system, what would they be?

lassie11

I'm with Lindasa in wishing we had something other than the "first past the post" system.

1Athena1 said "Some parliamentary systems, for example, have you choose a candidate for Prime Minister who heads a list of people you have never heard of, so you know one person but are populating the legislature blindly."

Kinda sorta but not quite in Canada. We do not vote directly for the Prime Minister. In my riding, I vote for whichever candidate I like the best. The winner in my riding goes to Ottawa to be a Member of Parliament. When the winners in all the ridings in the country are added up, the Prime Minister is the leader of the party who got the most MPs. The person gets to be Prime Minister because s/he has been voted as an MP in their own riding and because they were chosen by their party to be the leader of the party. The leader of the party with the second largest number of MPs becomes the Leader of the Opposition.

A minority parliament like we have now happens when the Prime Minister's party has fewer seats than everyone else added together. Later this month, we might see a non-confidence motion voted on by the other three parties showing that the government no longer has the confidence of Parliament and we will be on our way to an election within six weeks of it being called.

1Athena1

Lindasa, my first "druthers" - BESIDES GIVING DC THE RIGHT TO CHOOSE A MEMBER OF CONGRESS WITH FULL RIGHTS - would be to reform our electoral college system to make individual votes count more. Some say we can't do this because we are a republic (not quite sure exactly how that is an obstacle), but the system we have is antiquated. However, it is easy for the Beltway pundits/lazy journalists to cover and for the candidates to campaign on, so I doubt whether there will be much change any time soon. Especially because the pundits and the networks would have to do some real reporting and coverage, as opposed to relying on overpaid, underworked talking heads and their polls.