Punching the straight ticket in New Hampshire

(N. B.  Alert reader G. P. notes that correct usage is "straight-ticket Democratic."  My mistake, I thought "straight-ticket Democrat" was all right in that particular context.)

Before we get caught up in Primary Madness (only about 400 days to go, by the way), there is plenty of data to chew over from this most remarkable year in New Hampshire politics (or as Tom Rath might call it, an annus horribilis).

A few weeks ago we looked at the gubernatorial returns, county by county.  Now let's examine the much-discussed phenomenon of straight-ticket voting. 

According to the office of the Secretary of State:

83,481 voters cast straight-Democratic ballots, or 20 percent of the 418,000 who voted.
59,947 voters cast straight-Republican tickets, or 14.3 percent of all voters.

This year, to the joy of Granite State political junkies, the Secretary of State collected straight-ticket data from almost all of New Hampshire's municipalities.

Here are the towns and wards with the greatest percentage of straight-ticket Democrat voters.  All together, they add up to 5,772 straight tickets for the Democrats:

1. Plainfield, 46 percent straight-ticket Democratic; in other words, about half of the town's voters
2. Hanover, 44 percent
3. Nelson, 43 percent
4. Portsmouth, Ward 2, 41 percent
5. Madbury, 40 percent
6. Lyme, 40 percent
7. Cornish, 40 percent
8. Dover, Ward 1, 39 percent
9. Hinsdale, 39 percent
10. Portsmouth, Ward 5, 39 percent

Not surprisingly, all of these areas tend to vote strongly Democratic: four come from Hanover and its environs (Plainfield, Lyme, and Cornish); two from Cheshire County (Nelson and Hinsdale); two wards of Portsmouth; and two from Strafford County (Dover 1 and Madbury).