CHARLESTON, W.Va. — The November election will be the first general election in West Virginia when straight-ticket voting, checking one box or filling one oval to vote for all candidates in a particular political party, will not be an option.
“For folks who are used to going and voting and only voting a specific party, they just have to know that you can’t go to the top and expect to vote for everyone in that party, in all races,” Secretary of State Natalie Tennant said.
More than one in four West Virginia voters, 27 percent, used the straight-ticket option during the most recent general election in 2014.
Of the 126,400 total straight-ticket ballots cast that year, 53 percent were Republican, 42 percent were Democrat and the rest went for other parties, the Secretary of State said.
Voting for one party’s full slate of candidates can still be done, but each race must be marked separately.
Nine states allow some form of straight-ticket voting, also called straight-party voting, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. They are Alabama, Oklahoma, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Iowa, South Carolina, Kentucky, Texas and Utah.
In recent years, there’s been a trend toward eliminating straight-ticket voting including in Wisconsin in 2011, in North Carolina in 2013 and in Rhode Island in 2014.
The West Virginia Legislature ended straight-ticket voting in 2015, the first year Republicans held the most seats in both the state Senate and state House of Delegates.
“Maybe lawmakers want voters to be more engaged and really vote for the person, vote for the office that they are considering and we’re going to see what kind of results we get from that,” Tennant said.
Oct. 18 is the deadline to register to vote or update voter information in West Virginia ahead of the Nov. 8 election. Early voting runs from Oct. 26 to Nov. 5.