Avoid the straight party option when voting in November!

AVOID THE STRAIGHT PARTY OPTION WHEN VOTING IN NOVEMBER!

Effects of the Straight Party Voting Option and Sequoia Voting Machines Observed During the 2004 General Election in Santa Fe County, New Mexico

By Judith B. Alter, Ed.D.

This study of a single county in New Mexico describes the effect of the "straight-party" voting option in relation to the high "under-vote" that occurred in the 2004 presidential election in Santa Fe County. This study revealed, for one county, several of the patterns found by other researchers who have studied the election in the entire state of New Mexico. Unusual voting patterns emerged when researchers compared the presidential results to the totals of the statewide "down-ticket" candidates in the three voting opportunities: Absentee, Early Voting, and Election Day; each used different Sequoia voting systems.

After the November 2004 presidential election, the Green and Libertarian parties requested a recount in New Mexico because the state had the highest under-vote rate for president in the nation.  Election officials record an under-vote when the voter does not make a choice for particular race, in this case for president.   As a part of this recount, volunteers working with Black Box Voting obtained many public records documents.  The study of Santa Fe County the elections material acquired from this public records request provides the basis for the observations presented here. The analysis of the "straight-party" option appears to have contributed, in a major way, to the historic "under-vote" for president. The "straight party" voting option allows a voter to mark or cast a single vote that registers for all candidates in the voter's political party.

The high under-vote rate (no vote for any candidate for an office) in Santa Fe County and the rest of New Mexico may have occurred primarily when voters chose the "straight-party" voting option on election day. Another vote reducing and possible vote-shifting scheme seems to have been present in the Sequoia scanners that counted hand-marked paper ballots cast during absentee and early voting in the straight party choices for minor third parties. Finally, a large discrepancy exists between the number of signatures on voter rosters, the total votes cast, and the presidential votes cast, especially on Election Day.

New Mexico voters had three different opportunities to vote; each was tabulated by proprietary Sequoia software:  A voter could choose to vote 1)  absentee (ABS), using a paper ballot tabulated by Sequoia Optech 4C-400 scanners; 2) in early (EV) at five specified locations using a paper ballot tabulated by Sequoia Optech Insight scanners; and 3) on Election Day (ED), using Sequoia Advantage push button machines (DRE-direct recording electronic devices) where machines tabulated the votes and recorded the results on internal memory tapes.  In Santa Fe County on election day 86 precincts or polling sites contained a total of 214 Sequoia push button DRE machines.

In Santa Fe County, 62% of the voters registered as Democrats, 18% Republican, and 20% other or "decline to state."  Of these voters, Absentee voters comprised 29% of the total Santa Fe County votes, 35% chose to participate in Early Voting, and 36% participated in Election Day voting.  Of these voting choices, 0.26% of Absentee (ABS) ballots contained under-votes, 0.22% of Early Voting ballots recorded under-votes and a full 4.2% of Election Day voting recorded under-votes.  This means that of the 36% of voters who voted on Election Day in Santa Fe County, 4.2% of them did not record a vote for president.

        In contrast to results reported on the New Mexico Secretary of State's website, actual election night material provided the numbers of voters who chose the "straight-party" option.  The "straight-party" option allows a voter of a specific party to check a single box indicating the intention to vote for all the candidates in that party for all the races.  The voter would check one box and believe that all those running for any office of their party would receive their vote.  The "down-ticket" races refer to all of those contests below the president, such as congressional or senate races where a partisan vote was possible.   

"Straight-Party" Voting

The evidence about how the "straight-party" option worked on election day came from the compiled lists of voter complaint calls received by the many election protection services sponsored by groups such as the NAACP, PFAW, MoveOn, etc. Find these complaints compiled on the Election Incidents Reporting Service (EIRS) (http://voteprotect.org).  The reports shed light on the problems that occurred when voters chose the "straight-party" option in New Mexico and sixteen other states with the straight party option.

EIRS records indicate that the "straight-party" option appeared not to have included a vote for president for every party except for Republicans. When a Republican voter selected the straight party option, a Bush vote appeared to register automatically, that is, the machine showed "Bush" (with rare exceptions).  "Straight-party" voters from other than the Republican Party may not have discovered the absence of their presidential vote on their review screens. And others who reported finding no presidential vote on their review screens may not have realized how their choice of the "straight-party" option contributed to the absence of a presidential vote. The "straight-party" option appeared to have created a large under-vote by means of the no-vote-for-president (except Bush) phenomenon.

The second way the straight party option contributed to the under-vote occurred when voters selected candidates outside their straight party selection. Many voters may not have known that, on electronic voting machines, after selecting the straight party option, if they then voted for a candidate from another party, that non-straight party vote cancelled the voter's straight party choices throughout the rest of the ballot. For example, perhaps a Democrat voted for the Green Party County Surveyor instead of the Democratic candidate running against him. That one vote outside the Democratic straight party would automatically cancel all the selected votes for Democrats throughout the ballot.

When choosing the straight party option, voters reported another problem. Instead of no presidential choice appearing on the voting machine screen, voters reported that the wrong candidate, often Bush, appeared. Only two EIRS reports in New Mexico (Sandoval County) came from Republicans saying that their straight party selection, at first, showed a vote for the Democratic or Green Party candidate.  These voters reported that they corrected this wrong choice.

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