Wow, didn't see this one coming:
A new Indiana law that strips from ballots the names of candidates facing no election opponents has upset candidates, political parties and election officials who predict the blank spaces on ballots will confuse voters.
Nobody else did, either. It wasn't really discussed during the legislative session, and lawmakers didn't bother to tell the election officials who would be affected by the change. So we have a new law here no one asked for, that will really create no benefits, and will caused confusion and upset some people over unnecessary change. What a deal, huh?
The stated justification for the change is that it would save money. Really? Only for the places still using paper ballots, and then only if there are enough contested ballots so that their removal can reduce the ballots by a page, and not all that much.
I don't know about the absence of contested races causing "confusion," but it just wouldn't seem right. A ballot should be not just a means of asting our votes, but something that shows the totality of that particular voting experience -- something for the history books, you know? And how many votes an unchallenged candidate gets can tell you something interesting about the person's popularity, or lack of it.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
Comments
Honestly, I would have thought you'd be for this. Generally speaking, this will only affect Democrats. I'm liberal on most issues, as you know, but I always vote in the Republican primary, because it's the only one that gives me any choices. Even some left-wingers run as Republicans, so I don't think I'm doing anything dishonest.
As for added expense, the price of ink must have skyrocketed. And anyone confused by an uncontested candidate shouldn't be allowed to drive, have children *or* vote.
At first glance, I thought this was a good idea. It seemed to me that listing uncontested candidates served no other purpose than to stroke their ego. And (I would assume) those unlisted candidates will still show up in the records as having been up for election that year.
But it's the details of those records where a loss will be found. Suppose the Sheriff and Prosecutor are running uncontested. Since they share the same constituency, their number of respective votes can inform us about how the public perceives them. These kinds of details are very useful for other potential candidates to decide whether they may want to challenge at some later date.
I think this law is a bad idea!