The Alabama Secretary of State’s Office reported a startling statistic late about the balloting in our state on Election Day. About 1.7 million ballots were cast, representing about 50 percent of voting-age Alabamians. Of those, 1.1 million voters voted straight-party.

That means 2 out of 3 who went to the polls got a ballot and, instead of going race to race to determine which candidate might best serve the people of Alabama, simply marked “Alabama Democratic Party” or “Alabama Republican Party” at the top of the page. More to the point, 660,000 went for the GOP; 450,000 chose the Democratic Party.

While that tells us something we already knew — that there are at least half again as many Republicans as Democrats in our state — it strongly suggests that the majority of voters are so aligned with their particular party affiliation that they’re not willing to consider a candidate who’s not in their fold.

That mirrors the polarization in the national arena. However, it raises the question whether straight-party voting is good for the republic.

For instance, a voter in Houston County who chose a straight-party ticket might have realized later that their choice meant they’d voted for someone in a particular race when they supported the other, as a Democrat voter who meant to support GOP Sheriff Donald Valenza might have discovered after the fact.

In recent years, several states have discontinued straight-party balloting. Alabama is among the eight that still use it, although Texas will end the practice in 2020. There is also movement at the federal level to ban the practice.

That would not mean that a strongly partisan voter could not eschew every candidate who’s not in their favored party. It just means they’ll have to do it race by race. Hopefully, they’ll weigh each candidate on his or her own merits in the process.