In 2019, the Pennsylvania Legislature eliminated the Straight-Ticket Voting Option
(STVO). This meant voters could no longer select a button that automatically cast a ballot for
“all Democrats” or “all Republicans.” Many in the Commonwealth were concerned over how its
removal would affect electoral participation in down-ballot legislative races. Since no such study
existed in Pennsylvania, this became a worthy area of research and the focus of my study. I
analyzed the effect of eliminating the STVO on down-ballot participation, looking specifically at
ballot roll-off. Roll-off occurs when individuals choose to participate in select races on the ballot,
voting for some offices and leaving others blank. To study this phenomenon, I asked (1) what
effect eliminating the STVO had on ballot roll-off rates and (2) whether ballot roll-off rates were
affected by partisanship or race. I found that ballot roll-off does not systematically increase
following the removal of the STVO. In fact, in most cases roll-off decreases post-STVO. I also
found that neither partisanship nor race strongly affected roll-off rates when the STVO was
eliminated, except for in Philadelphia; Philadelpha, the most populous, diverse, and Democratic
county in Pennsylvania, had notably higher roll-off rates after the STVO was eliminated."