Tuesday's election convinced me of something I've considered ever since I started having coherent thoughts about our political process.

Go ahead and say it and get it out of your system. All right, now, let's all get back on track.

What I am talking about is abolishing the ability to vote a straight party ticket. If you feel so strongly about voting all Democrat or all Republican, take the time to push the buttons just so you actually take the time to vote for the candidate.

Lake County showed 75,968 people voted straight Democratic, 22,379 straight Republican and 87 straight Libertarian, for a total of 98,434, or 46 percent of the vote. That is incredible, and not incredibly flattering for the county.

That's about half of the people who didn't take time out to consider each candidate, to select on merit rather than affiliation. A one-punch straight party vote is an invitation to vote ignorantly.

On election night I was talking with Lake County Commissioner Roosevelt Allen Jr., D-Gary, about this phenomenon, and he said something that surprised me.

"I've been down in Indianapolis a few times recently, and it wasn't strange to see yard signs for Obama and Daniels in the same yard," he said, meaning President-elect Barack Obama, a Democrat, and successful incumbent Gov. Mitch Daniels, a Republican.

I asked him what he thought it meant, and he said, "I think it means we are seeing an era of a more educated voter. They are taking a look beyond party labels at issues. There are a lot of people who wanted Obama for president, but Daniels has been a fairly popular governor and they wanted to keep him as well."

Associated Press reporter Tom Coyne was telling me Tuesday night of his informal exit poll at the Ambridge-Mann Center in Gary of people who had voted straight Democrat, and to a person all said they were doing so because of Obama.

He said he asked several why they'd voted for Jill Long Thompson, and none of them knew who she was or what she was running for.

Thompson has said she was relying heavily on a straight party vote, and during the Obama rally in Highland last Friday, U.S. Rep. Pete Visclosky, D-Ind., urged people to vote a straight ticket.

They need to listen to the call put out election night when Obama reiterated his desire to put together a bipartisan Cabinet and work with John McCain and Sarah Palin.

Visclosky and Thompson need to believe in hope, and in change.

You know, like that other guy.

The opinions are solely those of the writer. He can be reached at markk@nwitimes.com or (219) 933-4170.