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Straight ticket voting. The argument has long been that more Democrats than Republicans favor that in the voting booth.
But for now, that option for Michigan voters seems to have vanished.
In a 2-1 decision, the 6th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in Cincinnati ruled Wednesday that Detroit U.S. District Court Judge Gershwin Drain erred in concluding the state’s GOP-led Legislature “intentionally discriminated against African Americans” by banning straight-ticket voting, report Beth LeBlanc and Jonathan Oosting of The Detroit News.
The two judges granted Attorney General Bill Schuette's request to let the 2015 law, passed by the Republican-controlled state legislature, take effect. With the general election just around the corner, it's unlikely there's enough time to successfully appeal the latest ruling.
At issue is the Michigan Legislature's 2015 ban on straight ticket voting, which allows voters to make a single mark to signal their support for every candidate of a given party. The ban was challenged in a lawsuit and stopped from taking effect multiple times through injunction.
Straight-ticket voting has been considered usually beneficial to Democrats, although President Donald Trump's narrow 2016 victory in Michigan aided Republicans. Reviving the ban might help Republicans in the fall.
The main rationale for striking down the new law was that it supposedly would add an estimated 3 minutes to the voting process in a statewide election, a projection the two judges found suspect and unscientific.
