Friday, October 31, 2008

US Rep John Lewis cites NC in request for emergency voting for Georgia

US Rep John Lewis cites North Carolina as an example to follow in his plea to the Georgia Secretary of State. We can be proud, and grateful of our state. Thanks go to the unsung heros: our State Board of Elections for approving extra voting hours for Saturday, our 100 Dedicated County Board of Elections for making it happen, and to the hoards of volunteer poll workers. Thanks to all counties that were able to make this work.

U.S. Rep. John Lewis offers to help clear the way for emergency weekend voting
Friday, October 31, 2008, 02:01 PM The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

This from a statement by U.S. Rep. John Lewis this morning, during a state Capitol press conference to discuss those long waits to vote:

“We are requesting that the Secretary of State [Karen Handel] use Florida and North Carolina as an example. We ask that she extend early voting in Georgia through Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. We believe the number of poll workers should be increased at polling sites where a large turnout is expected.

“She must increase the number of voter registration machines at locations where there is large turnout, and we are calling on Governor [Sonny] Perdue and Karen Handel to request emergency voting rights pre-clearance from the Department of Justice to clear the path for these changes.

“My office is preparing a letter right now, advising the Attorney General Mukasey of these issues in Georgia and encouraging him to grant emergency pre-clearance, when it is requested.”

UPDATE on Volatile voting situation in Forsyth County North Carolina

After noon Update:

I just got off the phone with Don Wright, the General Counsel for the NC SBoE.
The Forsyth BoE is meeting right now (12:20) to have that vote.
The SBOE sent a "Show Cause Order" to the Forsyth County Board of Elections first thing this morning, to express concern as to why they were delaying this important vote.

*******************************************************************


Well, Forsyth is the one county that actually voted to disregard the SBOE's directive to hand out the voter ed flyers about straight ticket voting.

The State Board of Elections issued two directives that the Forsyth County Board of Elections voted to disregard:

1. October 22, 2008 Straight ticket voter education hand outs directive


From: Johnnie McLean [mailto:Johnnie.McLean at ncmail.net]
Sent: Wednesday, October 22, 2008 5:07 PM

To: Directors.boe

Cc: ElectTechs.Sboe;

Subject: IMPORTANT INFORMATION

In order to ensure that all voters receive the information about President/Vice President being voted separately from all other offices you are directed to reproduce the following message (printed four to a page to be cut) and hand/mail to each voter when the ballot/voting equipment is assigned to the voter. Any color paper may be used to duplicate this information. This measure is in addition to the verbal instructions the pollworkers are to provide

************************************************************************

The Forsyth County BoE met on October 28 and discussed straight ticket voting and opening more early voting sites. Minutes here


2. October 30, 2008 call for all County BoEs to discuss extending One-stop Absentee Voting Hours for Saturday November 1, 2008


Due to the extremely heavy voter turnout and long lines at one-stop absentee voting sites, the State Boardof Elections unanimously voted at an emergency telephone conference call meeting today at 11:15 am to direct all county boards of elections to call an emergency meeting to discuss the extension of hours for the one-stop absentee voting sites on Saturday, November 1, 2008. Any called meeting must be posted in accordance with the public meetings laws

Next the NC State Board of Elections issued a "show cause" to the Forsyth County Board of Elections.

Forsyth County Board of Elections Emergency Board Meeting - October 31, 2008, minutes here. Excerpt:


Extending One-Stop on Final Day
Mr. Elliott stated the Board is meeting as required by a "show cause order" from the State Board of Elections.
...Mr. Elliott stated he did not think the hours need to be extended. He stated he is concerned about the State Board of Elections changing things after the One-Stop plans have been approved Ms. Sutton moved to extend the One-Stop closing
time to 5:00 PM on Saturday, November 1, 2008.
Mr. Jordan stated the Chairman of the Republican Party directed him to vote in favor of the extended hours because more Republicans are in the city and more early voting sites are in Republican areas. Mr. Jordan seconded the motion to extend the hours of the One Stop locations to 5:00 PM. The motion passed 2-1. (to extend One-Stop closing time).



The Forsyth County BoE plans to make their decision on whether to extend early voting hours - one hour before the early voting sites are scheduled to close. Oh that helps voters alot doesn't it?

There's something seriously wrong there:

http://www2.journalnow.com/content/2008/oct/30/301442/nc-elections-board-extends-early-voting-hours/news/

"The Forsyth County Board of Elections will meet at noon Saturday to decide whether to keep the polls open, one hour before the polls are scheduled to close, said Rob Coffman, the Forsyth elections director."

Background information on North Carolina straight ticket voting problem:

This Year's Butterfly Ballot New York Times October 27, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/27/opinion/27mon2.htmlNorth Carolina Straight Ticket Confusion

Voting Straight Ticket in North Carolina does NOT include the Presidential contest.
NC Coalition for Verified Voting 10/17/08
http://www.ncvoter.net/straightticket.html

How Bad is North Carolina’s Ballot Flaw? The Numbers Say, Pretty Bad By Lawrence Norden & Margeret Chen, Brennan Center for Justice 10/21/08
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0810/S00348.htm

It May Be Harder to Vote in Swing States By: David Rosenfeld Miller-McCune 10/22/08
http://www.miller-mccune.com/article/799



Thursday, October 30, 2008

Saturday Nov 1 NC Voters last chance to register or correct registration problems

One last chance. Saturday. November 1st.
Early Voting.
Extra Hours.
Same Day Registration,
Correct problems with your registration.

"NC elections board allows early voting extension" By MIKE BAKER – RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Early voting sites in North Carolina can stay open an extra four hours Saturday to help deal with record turnout, the state Board of Elections ruled Thursday

Are you registered to vote?

These students weren't!!!
Warning. Anyone who wants to vote must check online to make sure they are registered. Saturday is your last day to clear up any registration problems. You need to be registered to make your vote count! Some voters have fallen off the rolls due to glitches or for other reasons. If you have moved out of your county and didn't update your registration, you may have fallen off the rolls.

In their report, 2008 Primary in Review , Electionline advised that in NC, 69.3% of provisional ballots issued that could not be counted were for voters who were not registered to vote. 14.2% of voters whose ballots were not counted had been removed from the rolls. Electionline did not provide the number of provisional ballots.

Check! Check the State Board of Elections voter look up or call your County Elections Office. If your name doesn't isn't in the voter rolls, you can vote early and register to vote if you want a regular ballot. Find your early voting site, and bring some form of ID. Same Day Registration has been a boon to voters, including those who were registered but fell off the rolls. In the May 2008 primary, according to the State Board of Elections, about half of the people who used same day registration were correcting registration issues.

You must be registered to vote for your ballot to count. Saturday is your last chance to register or correct problems. On November 4, election day, voters will not have the opportunity to use same day registration in the event that they have fallen off the voter database, or to correct any problems with their registration.

If you have a problem with your registration and do not correct it, you may be issued a provisional ballot. These ballots are not counted on election day and have to be reviewed and approved by your County Elections Board. The Board has up until canvass day (about 10 days later) to count these ballots.

North Carolina issued 31,381 provisional ballots in May 2008. That is a big decrease compared from 92,621 provisional ballots issued in the 2006 General Election, with similar turnout numbers. Correct registration problems and get a regular ballot.

The State Board of Elections explains how to register during early voting and what are acceptable forms of ID:

To use this process, a citizen must (1) go to a One-Stop Voting Site in the county of residence during the One Stop Absentee Voting period, (2) fill out a voter registration application, and (3) provide proof of residency by showing the elections official an appropriate form of identification with the citizen’s current name and current address. The new registrant may vote ONLY at a One-Stop Absentee Voting Site in the county of registration during One-Stop Absentee Voting period and not on Election Day.

Acceptable forms of identification include:
A North Carolina driver’s license with current address
A utility bill with name and current address
A telephone or mobile phone bill
An electric or gas bill
A cable television bill
A water or sewage bill
A document with name and current address from a local, state, or U.S. government agency, such as:
A passport
A government-issued photo ID
U.S. military ID
A license to hunt, fish, own a gun, etc.
A property or other tax bill
Automotive or vehicle registration
Certified documentation of naturalization
A public housing or Social Service Agency document
A check, invoice, or letter from a government agency
A birth certificate
A student photo ID along with a document from the school showing the student’s name and current address
A paycheck or paycheck stub from an employer or a W-2 statement
A bank statement or bank-issued credit card statement
http://www.sboe.state.nc.us/content.aspx?ID=32

Warning NC Student Voters: ARE YOU REALLY REGISTERED TO VOTE? These students weren't!!!

WARNING! Anyone who wants to vote must check online to make sure they are registered. College Students are at HIGH RISK of not being on the voter rolls. You need to be registered to make your vote count! See the State Board of Elections voter look up . If your name doesn't show up in the voter rolls, you must go vote early and register to vote. Find your early voting site, and bring 2 pieces of ID.

Read this account in Huffington POst about students at UNC who registered to vote but were not registered:

Students Turned Away from Polls in Wilmington, NC WILMINGTON, N.C. --- Students here are reporting being turned away at the polls. Yuna Shin October 28, 2008

The problems mostly seem to concern the fact that on campus students often have seperate mailing and residential addresses. On UNCW's campus, for example, students reside at a dorm and receive mail at a university Post Office box.

When addresses could not be verified by poll workers, students were turned away. Some students also say that they never received voter registration cards and they could not find their registration status online.... more at the link

TIME IS RUNNING OUT TO CORRECT THIS! NOV 1 is your last chance to register and vote early . Do everything you can to avoid a provisional ballot, as provisionals are not counted on election night and about 30% are rejected.

The Wilmington Star News explains how voters can register and vote during early voting:

College voters face obstacles, but won't be denied
By Chris Mazzolini Staff Writer
Published: Thursday, October 30, 2008

...Anyone who comes to early voting sites to register and vote must fill out the registration form and show an approved type of identification before casting a ballot.
New voters must provide ID. Even voters with a valid registration card may need to bring ID to the polls.

The state requires new registrants in a county to provide valid ID when registering. If you don’t, voters need to bring one of the aforementioned forms of ID when they come to vote.
If you have problems with your registration, don’t wait until Election Day to deal with it. The best thing to do is to take care of any issues before early voting ends on at 1 p.m. Saturday, Williams said. If you don’t show identification during early voting, you can leave, gather up what you need and come back.

On Election Day, voters who did not provide the required identifying information during registration will either have to show that proof then and there or cast a provisional ballot, which gives a voter until 11 a.m. on Nov. 14 to bring identification documents to the county board of elections.

....read more here

Sunday, October 26, 2008

NY Times: North Carolina's Butterfly Ballot

The New York Times has an editorial about North Caroline's confusing straight ticket voting law today:

NY Times October 27, 2008 Editorial This Year’s Butterfly Ballot

In Florida’s “butterfly ballot” debacle of 2000, voters in Palm Beach County were so confused by the odd layout that many appear to have voted for the wrong candidate by mistake. At the time, there was a lot of talk about improving ballot design. Eight years later there are still far too many badly done ballots. North Carolina may have the country’s worst. It is already causing confusion with early voters. And if the presidential race is close, it could change the outcome.

Like a number of states, North Carolina allows its voters to choose a straight-party ticket. To do that, voters can mark one box and cast votes for all of the nominees of their preferred party. But North Carolina’s ballot has an unexpected twist. Even if a voter checks the straight-party box, he or she must vote separately for a presidential candidate.

...more at the link

Meanwhile, the State Board of Elections has responded to national concerns about NC's straight ticket voting problem by sending an advisory to all 100 County Boards of Elections. The email was sent Wednesday, at 5 PM 10/22. (Forwarded to us today). The email urges all County Board of Elections to have poll workers give handouts about straight ticket voting to all voters showing up to vote. It is not clear that all counties are complying.

Is your County complying with this directive? Some are not. And the voters will suffer as a result. It is important that every single county, every single polling place - in early voting and on election day comply.

In North Carolina, straight ticket voting does not count for President. Many voters do not realize this and as a result, our state has one of the highestundervote rates for President in the US. In 2004 we lost 92000 votes for President, and in 2000 we lost 75,000 votes for President because of this counter-intuitive law. See NC Straight Ticket Confusion.

Below is the email sent to all counties, are they all complying?
From: Johnnie McLean [mailto:Johnnie.McLean@ncmail.net] Sent: Wednesday, October 22, 2008 5:07 PM
To: Directors.boe
Cc: ElectTechs.Sboe;
Subject: IMPORTANT INFORMATION

In order to ensure that all voters receive the information about President/Vice President being voted separately from all other offices you are directed to reproduce the following message (printed four to a page to be cut) and hand/mail to each voter when the ballot/voting equipment is assigned to the voter. Any color paper may be used to duplicate this information. This measure is in addition to the verbal instructions the pollworkers are to provide

****************************************************************************************************************NOTICE: E-mail correspondence to and from this address may be subject to the North Carolina Public Records Law and may be disclosed to third parties by an authorized state official.
***************************************************************************************************************
E-mail correspondence to and from this address may be subject to the North Carolina Public Records Law and may be disclosed to third parties by anauthorized county official. If you have received this communication in error , please do not distribute it. Please notify the sender by E-mail at the address shown and delete the original message.

[Attachment]

PLEASE NOTE:

A "straight party" vote does not include the office of president or
any nonpartisan race or issue. You must vote for president/vice
president separately from the other offices. Nonpartisan offices
and issues also must be voted separately. More detailed instructions are
on your ballot. For paper ballots, be sure to turn the ballot over.

#

Background information

North Carolina Straight Ticket Confusion - Voting Straight Ticket in North Carolina does NOT include the Presidential contest. NC Coalition for Verified Voting 10/17/08

How Bad is North Carolina’s Ballot Flaw? The Numbers Say, Pretty Bad By Lawrence Norden & Margeret Chen, Brennan Center for Justice 10/21/08

It May Be Harder to Vote in Swing States By: David Rosenfeld Miller-McCune 10/22/08

Thursday, October 23, 2008

North Carolina: Vote Early and Vote Often? Is Early Voting Safe?

North Carolina offers early voting as an option for voters, in addition to election day voting. With North Carolina being considered a battleground state, voters worry about about voting machine fraud or malfunction, voter registration glitches, and voter fraud.

Is early voting risky, is it safe, is it prone to fraud? I believe that early voting does have the checks and balances needed to make it as safe as voting on election day. A voter wrote to ask me: "What documentation do poll workers use to verify that someone who has voted early or by absentee ballot does not vote again in their assigned precinct?"

Here is the answer:

The state has checks and balances in place. Up front, we have the poll book records to keep track of who has voted already. Some counties use electronic poll books or laptop computers, and others use paper poll books. To ensure that no one casts a ballot twice, the "one stop" ballots cast are "retrievable" ballots.

An election director explained this to me in some fairly simple language, which I will share with you:

The ballots are retrievable and can be removed from the machine if necessary.

What reasons dictate the removal of a early vote ballot from the machine?

The vote is tied to the voter even on optical scan/paper ballots - we are required to put the ID number on the ballot itself (or enter it into the DRE before the voter votes). The same process is designated on absentee ballots. The reason for this is that absentee ballots including one-stop voters must be approved by the board and can be challenged by any voter. So at the absentee meeting, if it is determined by the board that the voter is ineligble for whatever reason, the ballot could then be removed. Also if the voter votes on election day (which shouldn't happen but sometimes does) the absentee or one-stop ballot can then be removed and the vote subtracted so that the voter does not have their ballot counted twice.

There is no question that people voting absentee or one-stop give up some of the privacy of the ballot. It is marked with a number that can identify the ballot. However, every effort is made to protect the secrecy of the ballot because for instance if the board is looking at it, they are only seeing the number not a name.

You can also review North Carolina election law, although the references to one stop voting probably need to be updated to reflect that all of our voting systems have "retrievable" ballots, since we passed our paper ballot law in August 2005.

For more detailed legal language see this file of NC Election Laws (rather large PDF) and refer to page 236.
http://www.sboe.state.nc.us/getdocument.aspx?ID=249

Remember, whatever the process, whether it is casting a ballot, registering to vote, or voting early, its all about checks and balances. And remember, each of the 100 Counties in North Carolina have non partisan Election Directors to administer elections, and they have bi partisan Board of Elections Members, appointed by your political parties to oversea policy decisions. This setup provides great oversight of the process.

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Brennan Center: How Bad Is North Carolina’s Ballot Flaw?

Lawrence Norden and Margaret Chen of the Brennan Center for Justice warn about North Carolina's confusing straight ticket ballot. In 2004, when NC Verified Voting warned the media, activists and voters, the feedback was - surprise. In 2006, we got the same reaction - surprise.
That reaction, combined with NC's high undervote rate for President (one of the highest undervote rates for President in the US., worse than Florida) says that we need to warn voters each day of early voting and on election day, and we need to re-consider how to approach this voting method and ballots in the future.

North Carolina threw away 92,000 votes for President in 2004, and 75,000 votes for President in 2000.


How Bad is North Carolina’s Ballot Flaw? The Numbers Say, Pretty Bad
By Lawrence Norden & Margaret Chen, Brennan Center for Justice10/21/08

Some of you may have read about North Carolina's very confusing straight-party voting rules and ballots. If history is any guide, this has the potential to have a huge impact on the outcome of the presidential contest in North Carolina.

... read the full report here

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

NC Robo Calls Cost Women's Voices Women Vote $100,000

It is about time. Women's Voices, Women Vote broke NC law by making anonymous robo calls to voters during early voting of the primary. They also sewed confusion by mass mailing official looking voter registration forms to voters who were already registered or who were ineligible to vote. In dozens of states, during the primary, and since then, WVWV' s confusing mailers have caused registered voters to think they weren't registered, and has clogged registrars' offices with duplicate and sometimes inaccurate voter registration forms. WVWV was sending "registration forms" to small children, deceased people, and already registered voters in dozens of states. Several states are seeking to create new laws to prevent this type of chaos again, since WVWV has repeatedly ignored officials complaints about the group's practices. WVWV cannot "work" in North Carolina again until or unless it provides a written plan to the Attorney General's office on how WVWV would comply with the law.

Political group to pay $100,000 for robo calls October 21, 2008

RALEIGH - A group that made political robo calls before the May primary that violated state law has agreed to pay $100,000 in penalties and is barred from operating in the state before the November election, the State Attorney General's Office announced today.

The group, Women's Voices Women Vote, today agreed to pay $100,000 in civil penalties, the office announced. The money will go to North Carolina schools.
The organization also agreed not to resume any voter registration, education, turnout or similar activities in the state until after the Nov. 4 election. Future voter activities would have to comply with state law, and the group would have to provide the Attorney General's Office with a written description of how it would ensure its compliance with the law.

The Attorney General's Office began investigating Women's Voices Women Vote after it began calling people shortly before the primary

The prerecorded calls told people that they would soon receive voter registration forms in the mail, which they should fill out and submit. But the deadline to register by mail had passed, and some call recipients already were registered to vote, causing confusion, according to the Attorney General's Office.

...more at the link

North Carolina and the ACORN Voter Registration Drive

I wanted to get the straight facts about the North Carolina Acorn voter registration story, so I interviewed one of the North Carolina County Election Directors who reported some of the bad ACORN forms.

Acorn submitted about 28,000 registration forms in North Carolina. Contrast that with nearly 700,000 new registrations in the state. Readers, please remember, we have bi-partisan members on every County backing up our Election Directors as watchdogs. They are looking out for you. In the news article NC election officials investigate voter forms , few forms were considered suspect; there were about 120 for Durham County and about 30 from Wake County. These are the only counties that complaints have been reported in. "Durham elections director Mike Ashe said ACORN helped the county develop a system to trace problems."

Yesterday, I called up Mike Ashe, Director of Elections in Durham County, who reported some of the fraudulent registration forms that were submitted by ACORN. I felt that Mr. Ashe would be the best source of information on this issue, given that he had first hand experience.

I have paraphrased the first part of Mike's answers to my questions, (hence no quote marks) in order to make the answers less conversational and clearer to those who aren't versed on voter registration issues. The last half are direct quotes.

Question to Mike Ashe: What happens when you get ACORN forms?

Answer: (paraphrased)

We have several processes to screen them. Forms must be complete in order to process them. Voters must supply their birth date, a drivers license number or the last 4 digits of their social security number. Voters must sign the forms.

We run matches of the applicant's last 4 digits of their social security number or their drivers license number against corresponding govt databases. Any form that doesn't get a match, is coded must show ID the first time they vote. If the form does not provide these numbers, then the registration is flagged and the voter must provide ID the first time they vote.

Answer: (Direct Quote) "The ACORN issue was not ever voter fraud, but voter registration fraud trying to steal money from ACORN. Trying to get their quota. Lots of bogus to defraud their employer.

Durham got several applications for the same guy. The county doesn't turn in dozens of apps for the same guy. ACORN is required by law to turn in all apps. They (ACORN) flag the ones that they think are suspicious, they provide a cover sheet.

(We election officials) Have ability to reject , we are required to process all the forms, some go directly into the reject queue because of missing info, alot of them are very obvious. Many took pages out of the phone book. Alot don't have the date of birth, missing alot of required information."

Commentary: I hope that knowledge of the screening process provides some reassurance to you. I feel that we would hear more about this from election officials or their Board of Elections members, the members being appointed by the political parties themselves, if we didn't have the needed controls to prevent actual voter fraud.

Remember, your County's Director of Elections is a non partisan employee of the County. In addition, both political parties have a representative on each County's Board of Elections. These Board of Elections members are appointed by the county's political party Chairmen. These members sit in on canvassing meetings and policy meetings on a regular basis. They would see and hear about any questionable voter registration forms.

To find out who your County's BoE members are, you can go to your County Board of Elections website , visit this link

Thursday, October 9, 2008

Times story on voter databases gets it wrong on North Carolina

Times story on voter databases gets it wrong on North Carolina
Rumor control. New York Times article misleading. The NY Times yesterday ran a thinly researched article on voter purges in several states including North Carolina, “States’ Actions to Block Voters Appear Illegal” (10/08/08) . It uses lots of vague talk like “seems,” “appears,” or “may have . . .,” without much elaboration or direct reporting. The NY Times reporter did not cite comments from any North Carolina election officials or any local advocacy groups.

The NY Times reporter even seems to clear North Carolina in his response to my email asking what was going on.

The NY Times reporter even seems to clear North Carolina in his response to my email asking what was going on. Read it here:

From: Ian Urbina
To: joyce mccloy
Subject: RE: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/09/us/politics/09voting.html?_r=1&ref=politics&oref=slogin
Date: Oct 9, 2008 9:03 AM

From what we can see in the data, NC does not seem to have any major redflags. Best we can tell, it looks like the number of people coming off therolls would roughly correspond with the number of people leaving the stateor dying during that period (both of which are legitimate reasons to removepeople within 90 days before an election).

Ian

Read more here

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

North Carolina: Straight-ticket omits presidential race

Its good to see that someone is raising the alarm. Too bad there's nothing about the dangers of straight ticket voting in the voter guide sent to millions of North Carolina voters. Actually, it is too bad that North Carolina has this convoluted straight ticket-does-not-count-for-President law in the first place. Every four years NC ranks in the highest undervotes for the presidential contest. An undervote occurs when people people cast a ballot, but either chooses not to vote in a particular contest, or for some reason the vote is not recorded and tallied.

In 2004, Scripps Howard News Service reported that voters who mark the "straight-party-ticket voting" option must also vote separately for president. Every four years, tens of thousands of voters in both states (North Carolina and South Carolina) apparently forget to do this.

Straight-ticket omits presidential race
By James T. Hamilton Special to The Observer
Posted: Tuesday, Oct. 07, 2008

Hundreds 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.

Obscure change to the law

On North Carolina's ballot, the presidential contest is not included in the list of “Partisan Offices.” In order to cast a vote for president and a straight party vote, you need to make two marks – one in the presidential contest and the other in the straight party section. (And a straight-ticket vote does not cast a vote in judicial races, because those are nonpartisan.)
A state law passed in 1967 prohibits the combination of the vote for the president with any other office on the ballot. Why would a General Assembly controlled by Democrats in 1967 pass such a law? Straight party voting reduces the time it takes people to vote. It also means more votes are cast for offices lower on the ballot because people can simply register their vote for all partisan offices with one mark.

But for Southern Democrats in the 1960s, the specter of increasingly liberal candidates at the top of the ticket raised a problem. If the vote for president were included in the straight party option, Democrats who did not like the presidential nominee might be less inclined to vote straight party. The solution – separate the vote for president from the straight party vote.
Unfortunately, this ballot design introduces confusion. Some voters check the straight party option without realizing the need to vote separately in the presidential race. In studying the effect of ballot design on voting outcomes in North Carolina in 1992, Duke professor Sunny Ladd and I estimated that the straight party voting option caused nearly 1 percent of voters who went to the polls to fail to cast a vote in the presidential race.

Enough to make a difference?

If the ballot design causes about 1 percent of voters to fail to register their preferences, should we worry? In many elections, the presidential vote in North Carolina is not close. But in 1992, George H.W. Bush narrowly defeated Bill Clinton in North Carolina by getting 43.34 percent of the vote versus 42.65 percent for Clinton. Polls indicate this year, for the first time in many years, the presidential race in North Carolina might be similarly close.

Election officials know the straight party voting option is confusing. The ballot for 2008 contains reminders that you need to vote separately for the office of president.

Yet the ballot instructions are still hard to follow. The McCain and Obama campaigns should experiment now with different get-out-the-vote instructions that are phrased so voters actually cast their ballots for president when they go to the polls. After the 2008 election, the state should also engage in focus groups and other research to make sure future ballots are less confusing.

Both Barack Obama and John McCain are promising to bring change to Washington. It would be highly ironic if the version of change N.C. voters select is based not on their views of the candidates in 2008 but on the design of the ballot selected by the General Assembly in 1967.
James T. Hamilton is the director of the DeWitt Wallace Center for Media and Democracy at the Terry Sanford Institute of Public Policy at Duke University.