About Those Bullet Ballots

[MineralMan]

26. Many voters vote only part of the ballot.

Maybe just one race or a couple. Often, they don't look any further than the races that get lots of publicity, and just skip the rest.

It's difficult, for example, to get good information on a long list of candidates for a local school board. Often there's no advertising at all for those races. So, many people don't vote for anyone on the list.

Same thing applies to things like district judges. This year, all of the judges in my large urban county had to run for re-election. Most were unopposed. Most voters just skip over all of those votes. So, the count of total votes differs from race to race. Every time.

Some vote just for President. Some also vote for a Senator and maybe even a House member. Fewer vote for state legislative candidates. Fewer still for local races, like city council, etc. the number of votes goes down the farther down the ballot you look.

This year the only race that mattered to a heckuva lot of new voters was the Presidency. A good number of people only voted in that race. 1% or 2% wouldn't surprise me at all. Or even more in some cases.