A Random Idea

Here is a piece of legislation; SB 77 will, ostensibly, require that names be rotated when appearing on the ballot. The current structure is that the Governor's party is listed first, followed by the top minority party, etc. In races with multiple candidates, the candidates are listed in alphabetical order by party, much as they are in the primary election.

However, this bill would only provide the randomization of names on the ballot within party affiliation in a General Election. For example, in District 31 the 2006 ballot started with Don Dwyer and went Dwyer, Kipke, Schuh, Cadden, Fleckenstein, Reynolds. So, with the passage of this law, the order of the Republican trio and the Democratic trio would be randomized, but only within their own subgroups; the Governor's party would still be listed first. The text of the legislation basically assures that such randomization would only be used in House of Delegates races in multi-member districts.

If we truly wish to seek ballot randomization, then we need to completely randomize the ballot from top to bottom in both primary and general elections. This would mean that the order of the candidates would rotate regardless of party affiliation and regardless of the position in the alphabetized list. If that means in delegate races the Republican and Democratic candidates get interspersed, so be it. The current text of SB 77 accomplishes little useful randomization, particularly consideration that the randomization of the ballot would most help candidates in a primary election.

Though, perhaps that is the point behind this legislation. Its sponsors can claim ground attempting to "level the playing feel" through randomization while in reality maintaining the status quo for 90-percent of the ballot...