Eliminating Straight Ticket Voting Reduces Election Fraud This is the first election recently in North Carolina where straight ticket voting was eliminated. Many advocates of this change supported it because the majority of straight ticket voters fail to make selections in referendum and independent races such as judges thereby reducing democratic representation. Another useful side effect of eliminating straight ticket voting has been a reduction in election fraud. In all the previous recent general elections in North Carolina, our upper-middle class town has experienced busloads of people being shipped to our precincts on election day in large Greyhound style buses. Most of these voters appeared to not fit into our neighborhood; most dressed as if from the ghetto and were functionally illiterate. On the buses the riders where instructed how to vote straight-ticket Democratic. After voting they were all taken to Walmart and given a $25 gift card. Somehow our State Board of Elections does not view this activity as paying for votes. Somehow many of these voters seems to have registration addresses that were either vacant dwellings or gas stations. In many instances it appeared that an address had 50 or more inhabitants. With the elimination of straight ticket voting this year, all of these buses were missing on election day. Despite the hue and cry from Democratic advocates that eliminating straight ticket voting was suppression and would lead to a low turnout, North Carolina had the highest number of mid-term election voters in our history. It also appears the number of voters who competed their entire ballot including referendum and independent races is at a record percentage high. All-in-all the elimination of straight ticket voting, which enhances having an informed electorate, can only be described as a positive step.
Could the fact that NC now has a no-nonsense republican governor been a factor? The vote fraudsters could have been worried that their scheme would not have been tolerated and someone would end up in jail.