- July 19, 2016
- Firm News
- Personal Injury
A new article by the Detroit News details the latest lawsuit regarding the state’s straight-ticket ban, which would prohibit the straight-ticket voting and allow for party-line option on this fall’s ballots. Attorney Mark Brewer, along with Mary Ellen Gurewitz, represented the plaintiff in the hearing, the Michigan chapter of the A. Philip Randolph Institute. They argued against the prohibiting of straight-ticket voting and the ruling on the preliminary injection is expected to be released within a week.Attorney Brewer argued that the new ban would cause harm to the minority voters. This has been a standard in Michigan for 130 years. If eliminated, just months before this year’s presidential election, it would cause some confusion that educational efforts would not be able to fix. This means those going to the voting booths would have a hard time.
The argument cited the voting process taking much longer to complete with each voter needing to fill in between 18 and 30 bubbles instead of just one. As a result of a ripple effect, there would be longer lines. If this happens, it may cause less interested and impatient voters or anyone with a busy schedule to walk away from the polling location without voting.
According to Attorney Brewer, this ban would make it so “black voters would have less opportunity to vote.” This was based off of information from a study by Kurt Metzger, a demographer. The study shows that roughly 75% of voters who are in communities with more minorities — including Detroit — are straight-ticket voters. With this banned, it would go towards hurting the overall number of people voting.
The defendants in the case felt as though the need for filling in additional bubbles would not deter people from voting. They also criticized the study by Metzger, stating that he used just 9 of Michigan’s 83 counties.
Read the entire article to learn more.