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10/26/2004 |
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Political Blogging/Open Discussion Forum downsides: When you invite a competitor to come on over and respond to a post at your site, who knows what you'll get. Trust me. I had spacing between the paragraphs. 10:05:21 PM
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How Often Do the Candidates Vote?Jerry Hunt over at Mike Barber's site invited me to comment on the above topic. He couldn't find my name in the State BOE records. I think I gave him more than he bargined for in my reply. (The copy below of my post on Mike's site has the spacing between paragraphs that somehow doesn't register on his site.) Jerry,
Yet another good reason why we should keep paper records on our elections.
I traveled back and forth to my home in Michigan in 1998 as our company Team One Plastics set up(without seeking government incentives) a new 50 job manufacturing facility in Greensboro called Team 1 Carolina. My family and I took up permanent residence in Guilford County in November 1998.
We live about 200 yards outside the city limits of Greensboro and so I do not vote in municipal elections. If the state of North Carolina can find their records, they will show that I voted in 2000 and 2002 --the two general elections I was eligible to vote in.
I am a registered Libertarian, which means I cannot participate in the Democratic or Republican pre-election candidate selection process --- known as primaries so they can be subsidized at taxpayers expense. (Editor's note: The egregious nature of this subsidy continues to increase as we now have attained over one million registered voters in North Carolina who chose not to affiliate with either of the two major parties. I hope you big party boys realize the natives are getting restless.)
As for not being in the official State records I am getting irritated. In 2002, I stood as a Libertarian candidate for State Senate in district 26 --- running against only a Republican since the Democrats did not bother to offer a choice to voters in this district, which they have gerrymandered in the State Assembly for a token Republican victory. You cannot file for candidacy unless you are in the voter registration system somewhere, so I am certain that I was in someone's records to conduct my State Senate run in 2002.
This spring, when I told the Libertarian Party of North Carolina that I would be willing to run for board of Commissioners in Guilford County they also informed me that I was not showing up in the State records of registered voters. I was instructed to confirm my status when I filed with the Guilford County BOE. Indeed, I was in the Guilford County BOE system and the voter registration card I am staring at here on my desk shows James Robert Capo's registration date as 1/04/2000.
When I asked George Gilbert, director of our Guilford County BOE how I could be listed in the Guilford County system but not the state system, he said that it is not uncommon for the two systems not to agree. (This is what the chair of our Libertarian Party in North Carolina, Sean Haugh had told me earlier as well.) As an aside, George Gilbert said I should not feel bad about my name being missing in Raleigh since the state had also lost his own name in the system.
I hope this all makes voters more comfortable with our election process.
My personal opinion is that the Guilford County BOE runs a tight ship as BOE's go. All bets are off though when things move to the state level. Let me go on record and say I vigorously support some kind of system that would produce a hard copy of my vote.
Finally, a last appeal: It's now official. It is harder to certify a new political party in the state of North Carolina than in Iraq. To stay an officially certified party, the Libertarian Party of North Carolina needs at least 10% of the voters in our State to chose Barbara Howe for Governor or Tom Bailey for US Senate. If not, the state de-certifies us again and all the registered Libertarians in North Carolina get another letter telling us we have to change our party affiliation...and more registered voters will disappear into the black hole of Raleigh.
Voters should know that the two wings of the ruling party in North Carolina do everything in their power to avoid having to compete with real choices. We shouldn't be surprised as to why so many races have either no choice (uncontested races) or two bad choices.
Voters don't know how lucky they are that they actually have 3 choices for Board of Commissioners in District 7 this election.
(Apologies on the long post. Hope I didn't overstay my invite.)
9:46:50 PM
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Election "results" update: The Inside Scoop has ably clarified the story of the Libertarians, "One Glorious Moment." One last technicallity: "Gilbert said the votes cast in the test will be erased, and all the electronic machines must show zero votes cast before they're opened on Nov. 2." So, I take it from this we've spent additional money on many extra voting machines across the state for early voting? Or, is there some way to do a test and zero out votes in machines that are currently in use? Assuming additional machines, it would be interesting to know the mechanics of how all the early votes are brought into the system on election night. 8:35:32 AM
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