Home
PROVIDENCE, RI -- Advocates of repealing the state law that allows "straight-party voting'' say it is not solely a Republican-driven campaign to remove one of the election-day tools that has historically helped Democratic candidates.
But with a State House hearing on the proposed repeal scheduled for later today, a former Republican state lawmaker, Sue Story of Barrington, has surfaced as the behind-the-scenes organizer of an email campaign aimed at getting people to deluge House Judiciary Committee chairman Donald Lally with identically worded letters.
The letters say: "A decade ago in Rhode Island, when the mechanical voting machines were replaced by optical scanning equipment, state officials heralded the improved process. Unfortunately, they didn't finish the transition. It is time for Rhode Island to join the ranks of all its neighboring states in the Northeast and eliminate the straight-party ballot option.
"I believe that the straight-party ballot option leads to confusion at the polls, limitation of voter choice and undue influence of special interests in our government. Rhode Island needs a better balance in its government, with more candidates running for office. We need to support efforts that promote voter choice, rather that inhibit it. ... Please pass the bill H 5318 to eliminate the straight-party option from future Rhode Island ballots. ... Thank you. Respectfully, [fill in the blank].''
In an email exchange earlier today, Story, the former Republican representative from Barrington, said: "The elimination of the straight-party ballot option is an issue I have been working on for several years. [Former Republican Sen. June] Gibbs has been advocating this for even more years. This year, in our "retirement" from the General Assembly, we decided to focus on it to see if we could build a coalition to get it eliminated. ... Operation Clean Government has taken it on as one of their top five legislative priorities. Ken Block from the Moderate Party is helping. Rhode Island Statewide Coalition supports it. And of course, the Republican Party is in favor I presume.''
But, she said, "this is not a Republican driven campaign,'' and "June and I believe it is not just the Republicans that suffer from this archaic practice, but independent candidates and non-partisan candidates in local elections. We have tracked the vote over the past 10 years and find it an increasing practice - to the detriment of voter choice and, we believe, better government. It is a practice that RI holds onto, where all other states in the Northeast have abandoned it.''
Story doubles as the press secretary for TransformRI, a group incorporated in a way that places it outside state fundraising limits and reporting requirements. Republican Governor Carcieri is its honorary chairman.
But Story said: "I am not pushing it in my role as press secretary for Transform RI. It doesn't exactly fit into the five issues TransformRI is advocating ... [though] we may ask Transform to get involved down the line.''
The bill in question -- sponsored by freshman Representatives Brian C. Newberry, a North Smithfield Republican and Democrat Michael J. Marcello, of Scituate -- is the eighth bill on the nine-item bill agenda of the House Judiciary Committee, which is scheduled to meet when the House concludes its other business later today.
Rhode Island is one of just 16 states that still allow straight-ticket ballots, a practice that lets voters cast a single straight-party vote, rather than pick and choose their way through the field of candidates on a ballot. It was one of the contributing factors credited -- or blamed -- for the 2006 defeat of former U.S. Sen. Lincoln Chafee by his Democratic opponent, Sheldon Whitehouse.
More specifically, there were 61,357 straight-party votes for the Democratic ticket mingled among Whitehouse's final 206,110 votes; 18,424 straight-party GOP votes within the 179,001 who voted for Chafee, according to the state Board of Elections. Subtracting the straight-party voters on both sides, Chafee led Whitehouse 160,577 to 144,153.But here's another way to look at it: the 23,000 spike in straight-party Democratic voters since the '02 mid-term election wasn't enough to explain away Republican Chafee's ultimate 27,109 vote loss.
