Michigan asks high court to halt straight-party vote ruling

MI voters are used to voting by straight ticket.

Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette is taking his fight to end straight-party voting in the state to the U.S. Supreme Court after the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the full court won’t hear his appeal of an August 17 decision by a three-judge panel upholding a lower court decision that upheld a lower court ruling blocking a state law that banned the practice. Two lower courts had overturned the measure, agreeing with litigants that the new law discriminates against minorities that traditionally tend to vote Democrats.

“Michigan has joined 40 other states by requiring voters to actually vote for each candidate they intend to support-in other words, by eliminating straight-ticket voting”.

The emergency request filed Friday says a federal district judge and the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals wrongly blocked the law when “all MI has done is adopt an approach that 40 other states already follow”.

The Appeals Court ruling ensures just that.

On Thursday, Aug. 18, Schuette filed another emergency motion for appeal with the court of appeals, seeking an initial hearing “en banc”, or in front of all the judges of the court, rather than a selected panel. “This change is not a burden on voting – it is the very act of voting”.

U.S. District Judge Gershwin Drain halted the GOP-backed law in July, saying an increase in long lines would have disproportionately burdened blacks in the November election.

Schuette spokeswoman Andrea Bitely said Friday that an emergency application for a stay of the panel’s ruling asks for a decision by September 8 “in order for election officials to move forward with printing ballots for the November elections”, the Detroit Free Press reports.

That meant the same three-judge panel is to give expedited consideration of Schuette’s appeal of Drain’s preliminary injunction, instead of the full panel of 6th Circuit judges, as Schuette requested.

A lower court held the law probably violates the rights of minority voters in large cities who are most likely to use the option. But straight-ticket voting seems like a no-brainer. The deadline to finalize Michigan’s ballot is a week away. MI voters are used to it and want the option.

Rick Pluta, state Capitol bureau chief for the Michigan Public Radio Network, has been following the court fight over straight-ticket voting.

“Bill Schuette is a desperate man who will stop at nothing to waste taxpayer dollars and jeopardize the fairness and integrity of our elections, all in an effort to please his big-money GOP donors, like Ron Weiser, who also happens to be running for statewide office himself”.