I found some information on voting a straight ticket at http://www.snopes.com/politics/ballot/straightticket.asp

It might be of interest to anyone who is considering voting a straight ticket. I hope all of you who are planning to do so to ask your local election officials what the policy is in your area.

Seems in some states marking or punching McCain and also marking the straight republican ticket would constitute voting twice and your vote would be thrown out. In other states that is not the case.

I urge you all to find out what the regulations are in your area before voting day.

Personally I do not vote straight tickets.

I always vote a staight ticket...from top to bottom...minus the judges of course...if I don't know what their core beliefs are...then I can't vote for them...

I think you are missing what I am saying.

If you want to vote a straight ticket that's neither here nor there to me.

Your vote may be discarded if you mark a presidential candidates name and the straight ticket portion of the ballot.

Or if you only mark the straight ticket portion you may not have cast a vote for president.

So, if you want your vote to count no matter where you live please check out what the policy in your area is.

As far as judges go here in Michigan one of the places I look to discover information on judges is the MI Lawyers Weekly.
http://www.milawyersweekly.com/

I am sure there are similar sites in each state.