The main impact of this law is to slow voting in black neighborhoods. The judge found it does nothing to improve voting as the state suggested. You yourself said you could easily take an extra minute or two and select each candidate manually. So again what was the point of this law?
If it slows voting in black neighborhoods why don't we see issues related to slow votes among blacks in the other 40 states that don't allow this? If the argument is that it might increase wait times there was the inclusion of $5 million to fund additional staffing which has been an issue for 20 odd years in Detroit.
The judge didn't find this doesn't improve voting - just that the state didn't support its case in that regard. I do find it interesting that the judge says they have the right to vote straight party when other states specifically prohibit this. If its a right why isn't this established across all states? I find this especially odd given that states have been regularly abolishing including as early as 2015 with no court cases. FWIW the democrats benefited from the removal of that in WV. Same for both Kentucky and Oklahoma.
There has also been some critique among the new stations here that some of the arguments against it were 'cherry picked'. For example only 9 of the 33 counties were used in the examination of straight ticket voting. Ottawa county was not on that list which is the county with the second highest percentage of straight ticket voters in the state and was also 3:1 in terms of R straight party votes to democrat votes
Personally I agree with the numerous third party candidates that point out that straight ticket voting disproportionately affects their chances as they cannot get the same treatment on the ballot. If you're against specialized treatment and discrimination I would be interested to hear your arguments about giving certain candidates special treatment over others.
http://www.mlive.com/news/index.ssf/2016/09/half_of_michigan_voters_used_s.html
the court made a finding of fact that black people hugely disproportionately use this method of voting.
Just because one group disproportionally uses a certain method doesn't mean that method should still be used. If it did we should reinstate this in other states where white republican voters predominately use this - like WV.
Each person that would have and now can't is quintupling their time in the booth by your estimate. That adds up really fast.
And yet other states have managed to deal with the change. $5 million in additional resources seems like it would go a long way. That said it would also be helpful if MI allowed "no reason" absentee ballots but that proposal met bipartisan opposition despite its introduction by Republicans and support by the governor.[/quote][/QUOTE]