One of every three Iowans made a straight-party vote in the 2014

One of every three Iowans - 37 percent - made a straight-party vote in the 2014 general election, statistics the Iowa Secretary of State's Office compiled for the first time revealed.

Expect those results to be part of another bid in the 2015 Legislature to eliminate straight-ticket voting, the practice that allows voters to fill one oval on the ballot for all of the candidates in one political party. State Rep. Peter Cownie, R-West Des Moines, said this week he has filed another attempt to pass the straight-ticket ban in the upcoming session.

'This is one area where, if we can just take a little bit of partisanship out of the process, I think it serves all Iowans better,” Cownie said in an interview with IowaWatch.

Republicans benefited most in the midterm election, with 212,085 straight-ticket ballots accounting for 18.7 percent of all votes cast on Election Day, Nov. 4, and in absentee and early ballots leading up to that day. Most of the Republicans' ballots were cast on Election Day.

A total of 194,299 Democrats voted straight tickets, accounting for 17.1 percent of the total vote of 1.14 million. Most of the Democrats' straight-party votes were made by absentee and early ballots, the data obtained by the non-profit IowaWatch news organization show revealed.

The rest of the straight-party voting in the general election was nominal for third-party candidates.

Bids by Cownie the past two years to drop straight-ticket voting have failed. Last year's attempt died in the House State Government Committee. Cownie said Monday he is trying again in 2015.

'I think it's the right thing to do,” Cownie said in an IowaWatch interview. 'You've got to get the conversations started, so hopefully the conversation has begun.”

Cownie said he hears from Democrats, Republicans and voters declaring no party who like his idea.

'The problem is, probably, state parties,” Cownie said, referring to leaders and activists of the state's political parties. 'I'm not sure that they're, in fact, going to be on board with it - either one. But that's something that we'll need to work through if we're ever going to get it into law, probably.”

There has been a steady decline the past few decades in the number of states with a straight-ticket voting option. Iowa is one of 12 allowing it. Attempts to get rid of the option in the U.S. House have been made, but unsuccessfully.

Data the Secretary of State's Office collected from the 2014 general election remains unofficial because the straight-ticket data comes from Iowa's 99 counties' individual files. It has not been certified by the state executive council.

'There's been no effort to verify its accuracy with the counties at this point, because it's not something that they're legally required to provide to us as part of the official election result,” Reisetter said.

Secretary of State-elect Paul Pate, who takes office Jan. 1, will make the decision on whether or not a policy analysis is made on the newly collected information. He has not indicated a position.

Former U.S. Rep. Jim Leach, a visiting professor of law and senior scholar at the University of Iowa, said straight-ticket voting exists because of party activists in each party who have believed at various points in time that it benefits their party.

'I have always found it ironic that a straight-ticket lever exists in the state,” Leach wrote in an email.” ... Change will be hard to set in place unless and until legislators think first and foremost for the best interests of Iowa rather than that of their preferred political party.”

l This story was produced by Iowa Center for Public Affairs Journalism-IowaWatch.org, a non-profit, online news website that collaborates with Iowa news organizations to produce explanatory and investigative reporting.