The Republic has done news stories on Bartholomew County voters penchant for voting straight ticket.
You can always tell who those straight ticket voters are — they pull one screen, make their choice and hit the red “submit” button, and they are off and away in less than a minute.
But this year, as in many years, it’s very important for voters to know that voting straight ticket will not give you a voice in the Bartholomew Consolidated School Corp races (three districts), a question to amend the Indiana Constitution and whether several Indiana Supreme Court judges will be retained on the bench.
Poll workers are reminding each voter in Bartholomew County of the need to go further down the ballot, even if voting straight ticket, if the voter wishes to cast a vote in the school board races or give a yes or no on the other questions.
The constitutional amendment question appears on ballots as Public Question No. 1, as follows:
“Shall the Constitution of the State of Indiana be amended to remove the state superintendent of public instruction from the list of officeholders who shall discharge the powers and duties of the governor if the office of the governor and lieutenant governor are both vacant?”
The Indiana Constitution establishes a line of succession that would come into play if both the offices of governor and lieutenant governor became vacant. Currently, the list is, in order: Speaker of the Indiana House of Representatives, the Senate president pro tem, state treasurer, state auditor, secretary of state and state superintendent of public instruction.
However, the office of state superintendent of public instruction no longer exists as an elected position. State lawmakers in 2021 made the position a gubernatorial appointment rather than an elected office and renamed the job title secretary of education, according to reporting by our sister paper The Daily Journal in Franklin. State lawmakers first voted to make the state superintendent of public instruction position an appointed secretary of education position in 2017, moving up the state date in 2019 when then Republican State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jennifer McCormick declined to seek another term.
With the office no longer elected and already renamed, the proposed constitutional amendment essentially removes outdated language from the Constitution.
For the Supreme Court question, voters decide whether they want to keep Chief Justice Loretta Rush and Justices Mark Massa and Derek Molter on the state’s high court. There is a campaign afoot in Indiana urging voters to vote against retention as a protest to the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the constitutionality of Indiana’s near total abortion ban. In response, a bipartisan PAC has been organized to support retaining the justices on the bench.
If the three were voted not to be retained, the court would have to temporarily shut down as it would not have enough justices to operate, according to some state officials. However, no justice has lost a retention vote since voters were allowed to have a say in 1970.
So, straight party ticket voters. Heads up, and remember, there are some important choices to make beyond the political contests of Nov. 5. We don’t want you to miss them by voting a straight ticket and walking away.
