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How does straight-ticket voting work in N.C.?

Submitted by ryanteaguebeckwith on October 29, 2008 - 9:21pm.

Answer:

Voters must make their choice for president separate from the straight-ticket option.

In nearly all states that allow voters to choose all of the candidates from a political party, the so-called straight-ticket option includes the presidential race.

But in 1967, Democratic legislators in North Carolina — fearful of a down-ballot drag from presidential candidate Hubert Humphrey — decided to cut the presidential selection loose from other partisan races.

North Carolina is the only state with such a law. Only 17 states allow straight-ticket voting, while five other states have ended the practice in recent years, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Political scientists say that every election year tens of thousands of North Carolinians fail to vote for president.

Although undervoting does not make a difference when the winning candidate's margin is substantial, it can be enough to potentially throw a closer election.

According to a Duke University study, about 1 percent of voters mistakenly failed to vote for president in 1992, a year in which President George H.W. Bush won the state by less than 1 percent.

An analysis by Duke graduate student Justin Moore found that 3.15 percent of voters didn't vote for president in 2000 and 2.57 percent didn't vote in 2004. The national election-year average is 1.1 percent.

In 2008, state Democrats sent mailers and ran other efforts to teach voters about the tricky ballot.

Brief:

Voters must make their choice for president separate from the straight-ticket option.

Presidential spoilers in N.C. history

Submitted by ryanteaguebeckwith on June 10, 2008 - 3:47pm.

There have been five presidential spoilers in N.C. in the last century.

Since 1908, third-party candidates in the presidential race have earned enough votes to affect the race between the Republican and the Democrat on the ballot in 1912, 1968, 1980, 1992 and 1996.

In the first two cases, the third-party candidate came in second.

George Wallace was the most successful, earning 31.3 percent of the state vote in the 1968 race as the nominee of the segregationist American Independent Party. The winner, Republican Richard Nixon, won 39.5 percent, while Democrat Hubert Humphrey came in third with 29.2 percent.

The next most successful was former president Teddy Roosevelt, who ran on the Progressive or "Bull Moose" Party in 1912, earning 28.4 percent. Democrat Woodrow Wilson won the state with 59.2 percent, while Republican incumbent William Howard Taft came in third with 12 percent.

In the other races, the third-party candidates came in third, but got more votes than the margin of difference between the Democratic and Republican candidates.

In 1992, Texas businessman Ross Perot earned 13.7 percent of the vote, far more than the 0.79 percent margin that incumbent George H.W. Bush beat Bill Clinton by in North Carolina, despite losing the national race.

Four years later, Perot was roughly half as popular — picking up just 6.7 percent — but he still drew more votes than the 4.7 percent difference between winner Bob Dole and Clinton.

And in 1980, Independent candidate John Anderson won 2.9 percent, slightly more than the 2.1 percent difference between winner Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter.

College dropout

Submitted by ryanteaguebeckwith on July 27, 2007 - 11:38am.

North Carolina split its Electoral College vote once before.

But it wasn't set up that way by lawmakers.

In the 1968 election between Republican Richard Nixon, Democrat Hubert Humphrey and third-party candidate George Wallace, the race was close in North Carolina.

In the final count, Nixon got 39.5 percent of the vote; Humphrey, 31.3; and Wallace, 29.2.

When the Electoral College met, a Nixon elector, a John Birch Society member named Dr. Lloyd W. Bailey, instead cast his ballot for Wallace, saying he was unhappy with some of the president's appointments.

"Nixon has already clearly shown to us that we are going to have more of the same," he said.

Bailey argued that his vote was justified, since Wallace was the winner in his district. Nixon won anyway, and the Rocky Mount opthalmologist later admitted he wouldn't have voted for Wallace if it had changed the outcome.