Confused NC Voters Throwing Votes Away - Straight Ticket Confusion

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

Voting straight ticket? Vote 1-2-3 to make your vote count

Straight Ticket Confusion causes North Carolina voters to throw away tens of thousands of presidential votes away every four years.
North Carolina lost 92,000 votes for President in 2004 due to straight ticket confusion.
Our state has one of the highest undervote rates for President in the Country because of this.

I am writing to ask you for your help in making more votes count.
NC is one of two states in the country where straight ticket voting does not count for President. This unusual exception trips up tens of thousands of voters every 4 years.

Voters have very little reason to know about this exception, since it is not intuitive, and it was not even mentioned in the 3 million + voter guides mailed to households all over North Carolina. Now I am getting feedback from poll workers and observers that we still have voters who do not understand NC's straight ticket voting exceptions.

How to make your vote count if you choose the straight ticket option

If a voter wants to select the "straight ticket" option on their ballot, they should vote in three steps:

1, Vote for President,
2. Vote Straight ticket option
3. Flip the ballot over and vote for Judicial Contests

If voters can remember to Vote 1-2-3, they can ensure that their vote fully counts.

Justin Moore, PHD has an analysis of the undervotes in 2001 and 2004 on his site. He pulled his numbers from the NC SBoE website. Moore advised the NC State Legislature's Joint Select Committee on Electronic Voting in 2004/2005 prior to our passage of the Public Confidence in Elections Act SL 323 that required paper ballots and post election audits.

2000 3.15% undervote. 2,940,600 votes cast for President turnout 3,015,964 undervote for President = 75,364 undervotes
http://www.cs.duke.edu/~justin/voting/dat/NC/2000/per_race.html
http://www.app.sboe.state.nc.us/NCSBE/Elec/Results/y2000elect/stateresults.htm (turnout)


2004 2.57% undervote. 3,501,007 votes cast for President turnout turnout 3,593,323 undervote for President = 92,316 undervotes
http://www.cs.duke.edu/~justin/voting/dat/NC/2004/per_race.html
http://www.app.sboe.state.nc.us/NCSBE/Elec/Results/resultsby_contest_summary.asp?ED=11xx02xx2004AGENERAL2004REPUUS%2520SENATE&B1=Submit

2004 vote count smoother, still some problems
By THOMAS HARGROVE
Scripps Howard News Service
December 22, 2004

...Gary Bartlett, executive director of the North Carolina Board of Elections, did not defend the high undervote or suggest voters are ignoring the presidential race. "I was hoping we would improve over what happened in 2000. But this shows a law in our state that needs to be reviewed and probably be changed," Bartlett said.

Both North Carolina and South Carolina historically suffer unusually high undervotes in presidential elections because, by state law, voters who mark the "straight-party-ticket voting" option must also vote separately for president. Every four years, tens of thousands of voters in both states apparently forget to do this.

Full election data is not yet available from South Carolina, but in North Carolina this year 58,223 ballots failed to register a presidential vote.

A few other states with historically high rates of undervoting showed little or no improvement this year, including the key battleground state of Ohio. Some 96,580 ballots in the Buckeye State failed to register a presidential vote this year, up from 93,991 four years ago.
http://www.knoxstudio.com/shns/story.cfm?pk=MISCOUNT-FINAL-12-22-04&cat=AN




Joyce McCloy
NC Coalition for Verified Voting
www.ncvoter.net