Only 10 States Offer Straight Ticket Voting

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19. Straight ticket voting in NC was eliminated by the Republicans who took over in 2012

For a review of just why--gee, blame it on Obama

The tip-off of this exclusionary strategy, and indeed the whole rationale behind the sweeping changes to state election law, comes from statements by Jack Hawke, a former

NC GOP chair, former president of the Civitas Institute and former campaign manager for Pat McCrory. After the Democrats’ 2008 victory, Hawke wrote a column for the Carolina Journal explaining why the McCrory campaign fell short that year. Blame the straight ticket and early voting, he said.

“The [Obama] campaign targeted the most likely straight-ticket voters and made sure they voted early. The number of black and young voters was unprecedented,” Hawke wrote. “The Obama campaign had estimated that if 24 percent of the total vote was African-American they would carry the state. In fact, 27 percent of early voters statewide . . . were African-American.”

When you read Hawk’s explanation, you can understand how the GOP came to believe that to achieve victory it had to reverse the high turnout of black and young voters, go after straight-ticket voting and early voting, and cut same-day registration during early voting, which heavily favored youth and African-Americans.

The partisan goal of victory became completely intertwined with an anti-black, anti-youth electoral strategy, intentionally, purposefully. To recognize it as partisan does not excuse its racial and age bias. It may not be hateful, but it does hurt real people.

Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/opinion/op-ed/article10042076.html#storylink=cpy