In polls conducted in July and August of this year, independent US Senate candidate Gary Johnson was predicted to be a contender in New Mexico. Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver, a Democrat, came up with a something to stop that. Rig the ballots.
The tool Oliver is using to rig the ballots is called a straight-ticket voting. In straight ticket voting, voters only check one box, pull one lever or touch one button and vote for every member of a certain party. This greatly favors the party with the most candidates on the ballot. In New Mexico, that is Oliver's party, the Democratic Party. Oliver herself is up for re-election this year and would benefit from a straight ticket vote. It puts New Mexico Republican candidates at a disadvantage, but it kills any chances for independent candidates. Since there is not more than one independent candidate, they do not get a box to check, lever to pull or button to push. Often smaller parties are also not allowed to have a single party designation for their candidates either. It is human nature. Given the choice of checking one box or reading through an entire ballot, most people will check one box.
The New Mexico Supreme Court ruled in September that Secretary of State Oliver does not have the authority to make the straight ticket decision unilaterally. It had been reported initially that Oliver would ignore the court order because sample ballots had already been printed. However, it appears that New Mexico has made arrangements to re-print the ballots.
This is an example of why there should not be partisan elections officials. In this case, the partisan elections official was attempting to rig the ballot to not only favor her party but to give herself a greater chance to win re-election. Ballot rigging, gerrymandering and other scams are assured whenever the election's referees work for one of the teams involved. Elections officials should be independent civil servants or there should be a multi-partisan committee.
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