It has been widely reported that the Pennsylvania legislature is among the least effective group of state governance. That’s why it was surprising to see Governor Wolf sign onto law a sweeping group of changes that actually benefit voters and their freedom to choose in elections.
Among the changes will be easy access to absentee ballots and longer windows for registration and mail-in ballot applications. But the most important change is the elimination of Straight-Ticket voting. 42 out of 50 states do not have single-party selection for the obvious reasons that it allows voters to consider each candidate, the full range of parties, and can encourage write-in votes.
But one newspaper, the Daily Local of Chester County has published an editorial bemoaning this move towards democracy. Why would this be? On November 7th, 2019 the paper complained that eliminating Straight-Ticket voting was somehow “a regressive measure”.
How is this possible? Well, the paper claims that having people vote for individual candidates “will reduce the vote count in down-ballot races”. Also, the paper claims that this change will somehow harm the Democratic Party the most. Since that party essentially controls the major cities of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, the subtext seems to be that inner-city dwellers are too stupid and uneducated to be able to cast votes the way the rest of the population can.
The bottom line appears to be that voters in general cannot make ballot choices without a major party telling them how to do so using a single circle to fill in. Or perhaps they are too stupid to know that the ballot should be turned over to see all the races and questions. Heaven forbid that voters decide to learn about range of candidates, parties and opinions available to them.
Instead, Pennsylvania should avoid what over 80% of the United States does – have people actually consider and vote for one candidate at a time.
Local newspapers depend upon subscribers that want to be informed about local events and politicians. Without readers that want to be informed, the Daily Local will continue on its spiral towards oblivion.
As Libertarians, we support anything that encourages the freedom of choice and reduces the power of crony politics. Personal responsibility is important- each one of us needs to educate ourselves on our local politics and events so that we can make intelligent voting decisions. We do not need anyone to take our hand and help us fill in a ballot. We decry the view expressed in this editorial, as should every free-thinking voter in Chester County and Pennsylvania.