Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org
By John Gideon on 11/25/2008, 4:27pm PT  

Prior to election day we, VotersUnite.Org, counseled voters to not use straight-party voting. We put it on our website and I wrote about it in these spaces. Straight-party voting as it is used in Texas is rife for misunderstanding and mistakes by the voters. When someone votes a straight-party ticket but then also selects the name of a candidate within that party in a particular race, electronic machines "deselect" that candidate. If no other candidate is chosen, no vote is counted in that race. The best solution, in our minds, was to NOT use straight-party voting but we got a lot of push back from some party officials in the state. Now Dallas Co. Democrats have been in court in an attempt to get the county to count all deselected or emphasis votes. The Secretary of State and the county both say no. The court, after two days of hearings and the promise of a decision, has, at the last minute, decided that they may have no jurisdiction. There would be no problem at all if straight-party voting had not been pushed by party officials....

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