Straight-ticket omits presidential race
By James Hamilton, Special to The ObserverHundreds of thousands of new voters have been added to North Carolina's voter registration rolls this year. The candidates, parties and interest groups will spend millions to get N.C. voters to the polls.
Once these voters are in the voting booth, however, thousands will be disenfranchised by the design of the ballot.
Imagine, for example, you are a first time voter with a desire to vote straight party – to vote for all the candidates of a particular party. If you look at the official ballot that Mecklenburg County and all other counties are set to use on Nov. 4, you'll find the following sentence: “A Straight Party vote is a vote for all candidates of that party in partisan offices. Individual partisan office selections are not necessary if you select a Straight Party below.”
If you followed those directions, filled in the Democratic or Republican oval in the Straight Party Voting section and then left, you might think you'd just voted for president.
But you would be wrong.
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