Straight-party voting is bad for democracy

Straight-party voting is in the news. As a nonpartisan nonprofit and experts in campaign and election reform, we stand strongly opposed to the secretary of state enabling straight-party voting. In New Mexico it will benefit the Democrats, but in another Republican majority state it would benefit the Republicans. We would oppose it in that situation as well.

Who it hurts is obvious: It hurts the independent and minor-party candidates who need the voters to remember to vote for them. Saving someone 30 seconds at the ballot box does not improve voter turnout, it just enables lazy voting.

When you fill in the bubble for straight-party voting, if there is an independent on the ballot, that candidate is ignored. Our sister organization, Unite New Mexico, has three endorsed independent candidates all running against only one other candidate. Two are running against only a Democrat and one is running against only a Republican. With straight-party voting, people can and will forget to vote for someone they might care about getting elected.

A Democrat who votes straight party and does not want the Republican to get elected in a race with only an independent and a Republican candidate, will not get to vote for the independent. The odds they will forget go way up. If they go through the whole ballot, which nowadays takes only a minute or two, they will see the races where there is only an independent and a candidate for the party they do not support.

As more and more people choose not to identify with any party, the placement of straight-party ticketing goes against the rising tide of public desires. After all, 45 percent of Americans and 25 percent of New Mexicans do not affiliate with a party. Sixty percent of Millennials are independents, preferring not to join a political party.

In the end, the voter is hurt when our election system makes elections less competitive. New Mexico already has the greatest number of noncompetitive races in the nation. By implementing a system that makes it harder for candidates to run without a major party label, it continues our grand tradition of re-electing incumbents, many of whom have had no competition for a decade or two. Competition forces accountability, and accountability is the bedrock of democracy.