Election Reform
Curiously, for all the national news that makes its way into Rhode Island–based media, stories like this, from Paul Sperry of RealClearInvestigations, don’t seem to get much airing: When Fulton County, Ga., poll manager Suzi Voyles sorted through a large stack of mail-in ballots last November, she noticed an alarmingly odd pattern of uniformity in the markings…
That thought occurred to me while reading Brian Trusdell’s summary of a Rasmussen poll for Newsmax: Preventing cheating in elections is more important than expanding ways to vote, according to a majority of likely voters, who by a large margin also believe voter identification laws are not discriminatory, according to a Rasmussen poll. Moreover, most Americans…
This afternoon, Ken Block released the following interesting analysis of the 2012 election results for District 4. Reform advocate urges Fox and Senate President Paiva-Weed to respect the voice of Rhode Islanders and let bills eliminating Master Lever come to vote (PROVIDENCE, RI 4/10/13) Businessman Ken Block, who has been a leading advocate for the…
Yesterday, the Providence Journal also came out against the single party voting option, better known around here as the “master lever.” In the editorial, the Journal cites itself from another editorial written in 1948, describing the origins of the master lever. We note that the lever law passed under very dubious circumstances, after an all-night…
We, as a society, need to give deference to traditions upon which good governance is built, but, like corsets, manual typewriters, and LP records, the Rhode Island “Master Lever’s” time has passed. It is time to allow it to retire with dignity into the memories of our grandparents and public affairs’ historians. Contrary to what…
The movement to abolish the master lever, or more accurately in Rhode Island, abolish straight party voting (SPV) seems to be gaining steam. A couple days ago, Andrew wrote about the majority of the House Judiciary Committee is also in favor. Tomorrow night (Wednesday) at 4:30, the committee will hear public testimony on the bill.…
The weekly legislative review will start a little early this weekend. On Wednesday, March 13, the House Judiciary Committee will hear several bills on removing the master lever (i.e., the straight-party option) from Rhode Island election ballots. For various reasons, the most important of these bills is H5778, submitted at the request of the Secretary…
In a post yesterday describing some of Ken Block’s findings about apparent voting problems with the master lever, Patrick wrote 115 times [in Burrillville], the line was connected in favor of the Moderate party, but then all but 18 times, the voters chose someone else for Governor. The initial temptation is to make a glib…
Since the topic of straight-party voting has come up, of course there are those who want the option to stay. They believe that if I don’t want to use it, I don’t have to, but why take it away from those who do want to use it? Hey, great question. Let’s answer that. Because many…
Ken Block’s Eliminate the Master Lever in Rhode Island! website is now reporting that a majority of the members of the Rhode Island House of Representatives say they support the elimination of the straight party option (a.k.a. the “master lever”) from Rhode Island general election ballots. The RI Senate tally still shows 10 votes in…
