One of every three Iowans — 37 percent — voted a straight-party ticket in the 2014 general election, statistics the Iowa secretary of state’s office compiled for the first time revealed. Expect those results to be part of another bid in the 2015 Iowa Legislature to eliminate straight-ticket voting, the practice that allows voters to fill one oval on the ballot for all of the candidates in one political party. Rep. Peter Cownie, R-West Des Moines, said this week he has filed another attempt to pass the straight-ticket ban in the upcoming session. “This is one area where, if we can just take a little bit of partisanship out of the process, I think it serves all Iowans better,” Cownie said.
Republicans benefited most in the mid-term election, with 212,085 straight-ticket ballots accounting for 18.7 percent of all votes cast on Election Day, Nov. 4, and in absentee and early ballots leading up to that day. Most of the Republicans’ ballots were cast on Election Day.
A total of 194,299 Democrats voted straight tickets, accounting for 17.1 percent of the total vote of 1.14 million. Most of the Democrats’ straight-party votes were made by absentee and early ballots.
This kind of detailed report on how many straight-ticket votes were cast in a general election previously has not been collected. Data were collected this year after journalists writing about legislative attempts to ban straight-ticket voting sought information about the practice, Sarah Reisetter, Iowa director of elections, said.
Full Article: One third of Iowans voted a straight ticket in November.