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.
