By BRUCE MAPLES
If you saw a ballot where the straight-party box was partially colored in, but then a line was drawn through the party name and the rest of the box, and the voter proceeded to cast votes in individual races, what would you conclude?
Any reasonable person, looking at that ballot, would assume that the voter changed their mind about voting straight party, and instead decided to cast votes in the races they cared about. And to leave blank the races they weren’t sure about.
And then, if the local board of elections decided to not count that ballot in the House race, because there was no vote on the ballot in that race, any reasonable person would say that was the right thing to do.