News-Record.com

More news from the political story that just won't stop. I'm sure this guy is fuzzy with excitement this morning.

Excuse me while I reach for an aspirin, but this is the sort of thing that gives me a headache.

You may remember that voting machine maker Diebold last month went to court asking to be excused from part of the state's brand spanking new voting law.

Earlier this week, the judge, in effect, said "no, obey the law as written."

During and after the court heading Monday, Diebold's lawyers said they would be unable to bid on the state's voting machine contracts without the change to the law. They would withdraw from consideration, the lawyers said.

So who was approved as one of the three vendors allowed to sell voting machines in North Carolina next year?

Diebold.

And no, the law hasn't changed since Monday.

I haven't had cause to do one of these posts lately, but we'll kick off this Friday Appointments post nice and early.

Gov. Mike Easley has appointed:

• Michelle Gethers-Clark of Greensboro to the N.C. Agricultural and Technical State University Board of Trustees. Gethers-Clark is senior vice president of Card Operations for American Express. She is a member of the International Civil Rights Center and Museum Board of Directors.
• George W. House of Greensboro to the N.C. State Museum of Natural Sciences Advisory Commission. (This is a reappointment) House is a partner with Brooks, Pierce, McLendon, Humphrey and Leonard LLP and is chair of the commission. He is a member of the N.C. Bar Association, Virginia Bar Association and Greensboro Kiwanis Club. House was named Best Environmental Lawyer in North Carolina by Legal Elite Magazine in 2005.
• J. Donald Cline of Greensboro to the N.C. State Museum of Natural Sciences Advisory Commission. Cline is president of Pisgah Astronomical Research Institute. He received his bachelor’s degrees in math and physics from Guilford College.

Here's a nicely done profile (registration required) by the Charlotte Observer's Mark Johnson of the guy who has caused a buzz by starting this site.

In case you missed it, here’s my story on election folks worrying that they might not be able to roll out new voting systems in time for the May primary.

You may think that four months and change (early voting begins in April next year) is a lot of time to get something like this done. But governments are not known for moving with alacrity. And there are still a few details to be nailed down before the voting machine vendors that were certified yesterday can legally begin selling their wares.

Bottom line: We may not know where. We may not know exactly what. But the folks who are responsible for running the state’s elections say that North Carolina residents should be prepared for problems next spring.

Gov. Mike Easley is scheduled to meet the press Tuesday morning (10/06) next week. There's no specific topic, as he's basically granting an end-of-year interview request to a bunch of people at once.

So what would you ask him?

Yes, I have some questions of my own. But chances are at least some of you out there have something on your minds that I wouldn't have thought about.

And between the lottery, Dell's arrival, the newly empanelled legislative ethics committee, teacher salaries, teacher qualifications, the state budget, voting machine issues, recent executions and everything else going on related to state government, there's plenty of fertile ground to plow.

Just so you don't get too excited, here are a couple caveats: An individual reporter will be limited by time and the number of others in the room as to how many questions he can get off. Also, questions that are more political needling than actually aimed at eliciting a response aren't going to be much good to me.

Other than that, serve 'em up.

Reply via the comments link below or direct to e-mail at mbinker@news-record.com. If you want to make sure I get your question, send it by 5:30 p.m. on Monday.

My plan is to post audio of the session if I get a clean enough recording. Any of the questions submitted by you folks in the blogsphere that I use will get posted here with their answers Tuesday afternoon.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, which helped intervene in the Diebold lawsuit earlier this week, is none to impressed with the SBOE's certification of the company to sell voting equipment in North Carolina.

If you can pull yourself away from coverage of President Bush's visit, there's other political tid bits to reckon with today.

Regular readers will recall that House Speaker Jim Black has had, at the very least, some public image problems lately. One facet of those problems, relates to Black's patronage of Mike Decker the Republican-Democrat-Republican, whose flip-floppery helped create the co-speakership situation in 2002.

Now comes Democracy-NC with the following:

Despite on-going state and federal investigators, political donations tied to the video-poker industry continue to pour into North Carolina campaigns – more than $220,000 in the last election – and continue to highlight legal and ethical controversies involving Speaker Jim Black.

That total doesn’t include the $109,000 two operators put into their own failed campaigns for the General Assembly. One loser, distributor Clarence “Bucky” Jernigan, admitted he engaged in illegal gambling soon after announcing his candidacy and the sheriff destroyed 275 of his machines.

More from the release on Decker:

Michael Decker received $11,500 from industry-related donors, including $8,000 on the day Jim Black was elected Co-Speaker – Feb. 5, 2003. “Video-poker money was the largest share of $30,000 Decker’s campaign got in the 10 days before or after that vote from donors tied to interests and individuals backing Black,” Hall said. None of the donors had ever given to Decker before.

But the really fascinating bit is this:

Hall pointed out the overlap in the money and votes on that bill. Of the 60 House members who backed the Culpepper/Black bill on its crucial second roll-call vote, 50 received video-poker PAC money. By contrast, of the 53 House members who opposed the bill, only 7 received Amusement PAC funds during 2003-2004 – and 4 of those 7 changed their votes on the final, third roll-call vote to Yes or Not Voting.

Now click here and read the whole thing. (Microsoft Word Format)

From the e-mail box:

RALEIGH – Gov. Mike Easley urges North Carolinians to remember our veterans this holiday season, especially residents in N.C. State Veterans Nursing Homes. One way to do this is to send cards, wish-list gifts or monetary donations to benefit residents.

“We must not forget the contributions made by our veterans to protect our country,” Easley said. “Especially at this time of year, we should do all we can to let them know how grateful we are for their dedication and sacrifice.”

Citizens, organizations and businesses can send cards and make holiday donations to provide cheer to residents at the state veterans nursing homes in Fayetteville and Salisbury. A monetary contribution will be used to give a resident a gift personally selected for them by staff. Contributions received through the nonprofit Friends of the N.C. State Veterans Homes are tax deductible.

Contributions can be made to Friends of the N.C. State Veterans Homes and should be addressed to Holiday Cheer, c/o James Woodard, N.C. Division of Veterans Affairs, 1315 Mail Service Center, Raleigh, N.C. 27699-1315. Donations may be accompanied by a signed card or given anonymously.

In addition to cards and monetary contributions, there are other wish-list items for the nursing homes, including new videos, DVDs and games. For details, call Woodard at 919/733-3851 or visit www.doa.state.nc.us/vets/va.htm.

The Division of Veterans Affairs in the N.C. Department of Administration administers the 150-bed Fayetteville facility, which opened its doors in 1999, and the 99-bed Salisbury facility, which admitted its first residents in 2004. Wartime veterans receive priority in admission.

Update: Here's the AP's story on yesterday's chat with Easley.

Earlier this week I had asked for questions that you might want to ask Gov. Mike Easley. While I didn't use any of the questions verbatim, I think we may have gotten at the spirit of a few of them.

So as I sit and ponder what to do with 100 minutes worth of notes and recording from Easley's end-of-year chat with members of the press corps, you can ponder Easley's answers when asked about the Jim Black saga. (If you need background, here. If not:

Click here for a real audio file. It's just shy of six minutes.

The first question you'll hear is whether Easley thinks legislative leaders have too much power. There's a short, somewhat silly interlude after the answer to that question when Easley talks about being the only right-handed male in his family. Then he gets two questions about Speaker Black, including whether he thinks Black should step down.

"At some point ... people are going to want to know what the explanation here, and how did this happen and what are your going to do to fix it," Easley said, but didn't get close to saying that Black should step down.

But you should listen to the whole thing.

Readers at this blog have seen a lot about voting machines over the past few weeks. Are you curious to see what all the fuss is about? Well here’s your chance.

I don't know many folks in state government who blog (a prominent local exception being Pricey Harrison), but there are some folks who work around state government that are catching the wave.

The latest by SEANC can be found by clicking here.

SEANC is the State Employees Association of North Carolina. In his first post, SEANC Director Dana Cope lays out his goals for the group:

• To become the number one Political Action Committee in North Carolina
• To promote greater member involvement
• To elect at least 10 SEANC members to the legislature
• To gain collective bargaining for public employees
• To gain a fully funded pay plan
• To recruit 65,000 members by 2010

By way of background, SEANC has a long-running battle to boost worker pay, mainly fought in the hall of the legislature. The group watched teachers get a pay raises a couple different ways this year while rank-in-file state employees received much more modest compensation.

Again, go ahead and check out the new blog on the block. And if you want, drop me a line and let me know who else up here in Cap City you think should be blogging.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, on behalf of Joyce McCloy of Winston-Salem, said today that it has sued the state for improperly certifying voting machine manufacturers to sell equipment in North Carolina.

Click here for the press release.

Click here for the legal brief.

Click here for links to prior posts on this topic.

Good afternoon. So far today, there’s been only one appointment from the governor with obvious local ties. Easley has appointed:

• Edward W. Kelly III of Greensboro to the N.C. Employment Security Commission.

  Kelly is a retired human resource and safety manager with Dow Corning Corp. He is a member of the Guilford Technical Community College Chemical Advisory Board, the Human Resource Management Association of Greensboro and the Society of Human Resource Management. Kelly received the N.C. Department of Labor’s Apprenticeship Award for Outstanding Service and a Public Service Award from Dow Corning Corp.

  The commission rules on appealed unemployment insurance claims and tax matters serving as the highest administrative voice. The rulings are then appealable to the N.C. Superior Court. The commission has seven members, each serving a four-year term. The governor appoints all members.

North Carolina Women United, describes itself as "a consensus-based coalition of organizations committed to achieving full equality and empowerment for women."

As many groups do, they have recently put out a legislative report card to show what they think went right or wrong during the General Assembly session.

Click here for that report in PDF form.

Click here for that report as a MS Word document.

And Click here for group's news release on the topic.

You may remember a post and story I wrote last week saying that state election officials were worried about being able to deploy a whole new network of voting machines in time for the May primary.

Well, they aren't the only ones.

The North Carolina Association of County Commissioners says the state hasn't come through with enough funding to help the counties buy and deploy the new machines. From association director David Thompson:

“It is unreasonable to expect that all 100 counties can review the approved equipment and then decide which to order by Jan. 20,” said Thompson. “In addition, funding provided by the federal and state governments under the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) is insufficient to meet the increased state requirements under the General Assembly’s Public Confidence in Elections Act. The General Assembly’s decision to require a paper trail is essentially another unfunded mandate on counties.”

Click here to read the whole release.

Good Sunday morning. Here are a few updates from the world of state government. First from me:

• There is this story on local Democratic House members saying they still support Speaker Jim Black, despite his recent publicity problems. And let’s be real: as the story details, there’s so much of a paper trail between Black and local Democratic pols that they couldn’t really hide their ties even if they wanted.
• And the folks at ALE, the agency responsible for enforcing the lottery laws on retailers, say they can't hire all the folks they think they'll need to do the job by April 5, when the game is supposed to get going.

But wait there's more from our friends at the state's other newspapers:

• Raleigh's N+O had this story about retired pols using their left over campaign accounts for, um, non-political expenses.(Registration required if you haven't already.) It leads with former Guilford County legislator Joanne Bowie who bought herself a new car and new computer with the proceeds. Find the actual campaign finance report by clicking here.(PDF) (She also paid some taxes and invested some in a retirement account.)
• Okay, it's not from this weekend, but this Charlotte Observer story about a planned protest against Black in Ashville by former Democrats is interesting anyway.(Yeah, registration required there too.)

And finally, if you're a fan of our Inside Scoop column that runs in the newspaper, you'll want to know it's moving.

See you back here on Monday.

The Department of Cultural Resources
How can it be is podcasting. Does this make podcasting more or less hip? (And have I just proven that I'm completely unhip for using the word "hip" in a sentence without even thinking about it?)

Anyway, go listen if you like. The first edition features the six folks who recently received the North Carolina Award. (One of those was Joseph M. Bryan Jr., for his public service work.)

Superior Court Judge Donald Stephens got a crash course in voting machine laws and computer science Wednesday afternoon as he tried to sort out whether the state Board of Elections examined the state's new crop of voting machines as carefully as the state legislature wanted.

His education will continue next week. Stephens wasn't prepared to make a ruling Wednesday but sounds like he wants to come to some sort of decision before Dec. 23, which is the date voting machine companies given the "OK" by the state can start selling their wares to counties.

By way of background: The state certified two voting machine makers - Diebold and ES&S - as meeting all the requirements laid down by federal and state laws.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, on behalf of Winston-Salem based advocate Joyce McCloy, sued, saying that the state did not go about that certification process correctly.

Hence Wednesday's hearing. Adding to the fun is a strong and probably not unfounded fear that no matter how quickly the state moves, the 100 counties won't be able to deploy new voting equipment quickly enough.

I'm not going to try right now to do full justice to the arguments on both sides of the case. But:

The EFF argues: the State Board of Elections did not hold Diebold and ES&S to the strict standards set forth by North Carolina. Specifically, the foundation argues that the state didn't properly examine the computer code that runs the machines. They further argue that the state should have required the voting machine makers to escrow their code BEFORE granting them certification.

The State Board argues: that they have required the voting machine makers to escrow their code by Dec. 22 and that's perfectly fine under the law. They further say that the code that tabulates votes got a thorough checking out by an undisclosed panel of experts. Further, they argued that state law does not require them to examine the source code for off the shelf produces such as Microsoft Windows.

Who's right? Hey, if the guy with a law degree and a gavel ain't saying, I'm not either. But Judge Stephens did ask both sides to submit more briefs. Stephens seemed bothered by the fact that if he granted what the EFF was asking, he could end up costing the state some money (North Carolina could be asked to hand back some federal funds if a hand-full of counties fail to meet a Jan. 1 deadline) and he could bollix up what's already a process running on a pretty tight time frame.

"I do believe what you are asking me to do is dramatic and could place some financial burden on the state," Stephens said. The EFF and McCloy will be asked if they're willing to post some sort of bond in case things go to trial and they turn out to be wrong.

The next hearing in this case is scheduled for Wednesday, Dec. 21 at 2 p.m.

Related voting machine vendor news:

• Sequoia, an other major voting manufacture, has withdrawn its application for certification in North Carolina. SBOE officials said they expected the company to re-apply in January. The problem Sequoia may run into, however, is that counties will have to make decisions on which voting systems to use pretty fast. By the time they get certified by the state, a lot of those decisions could already be made.

• Diebold has had a rough week. First the company's CEO resigned. Then it got hit with a lawsuit which alleges "the voting-machine maker lacked sufficient internal controls, was unable to be confident in the quality of its voting machines and made misleading statements about its condition."

So, you've decided to participate in our political system and run for office or something. Great, fine, whatever, good on you. I used to say I had only one piece of advice for aspiring candidates:

• Don't be surprised when a jerk like me who works for a newspaper calls you up and asks about stuff like prior convictions, unpaid tax bills or why you haven't voted in a bunch of elections. Yes, we check that sort of stuff and yes, in some cases voters even care.

Now, I have two:

• Save your money for direct mailings or television or getting your campaign staff boozed up. There's no need to get a letter like this one (PDF) the SBOE sent to the North Carolina Beer and Wine Wholesalers recently. The beer and wine lobby was facing $21,500 in fines Wednesday simply for filing campaign finance reports late. (That figure was dropped to $5,000 by the state board, by the way).

File your paper work on time and save your dough for something useful, like that 3,000th yard sign you can plop illegally in the right-of-way on Wendover Avenue for that extra bit of name recognition. Hmmm, come to think of it, you should probably use your money for something that doesn't give me license to use the word "illegally."

The Talking about Politics blog officially earned a spot on my permanent reading rotation today with this post on the tussle between the state GOP and Richard Morgan. Why? Anyone who can use the word "polecat" with a straight face when talking about politics is worth a read. (For more on the Morgan thing, click here.

Also, the following quote from this post made me laugh so hard Diet Coke came out my nose:

... with the lottery the politicians have found a way to make the people want to give the government money. That’s why the lottery is a truly awe-inspiring – and frightening – idea.

From this Charlotte Observer story (reg. req.):

"I've made some mistakes in judgment and if I could do those things again, I'd do them differently," Black said to reporters at the first news conference he has called about the probe.

For our loyal Rockingham reader(s): the SBOE has ordered that Stoneville will have itself a new election.

A few points of update on the NC Lottery:

• The Lottery Commission met this morning (12/15). The only substantail action it took was to give Director Tom Shaheen permission to publish RFPs for its online gaming and instant ticket sales systems on Monday. Online gaming is the term of art for the system that lets you go into convenience store and pick numbers on a ticket, rather than just going and buying a scratch-off card.
• The NC Institute for Constitutional Law is expected to announce it has sued the state over the lottery law this afternoon. They will complain that the process by which the law came to pass circumvented constitutional safeguards. When asked if the lawsuit would affect the start up of the game, Lottery Commission Chairman Charles Sanders said, "That's not our department." Sanders said the lottery would plow ahead toward its April 5 start-date unless it has some reason (like an injunction) to stop.
• And in case you didn't see it, the lottery has hired a security director.

I got copied on this letter (MSWORD Doc) from the Warren County GOP this morning. It reads in part:

The Warren County Republican Party respectfully asks that no taxpayer money be appropriated for the purchase of electronic voting machines from Diebold, or any other provider, until such time as all questions regarding the certification process and the relationship between Chairman Leake and Diebold's representatives have been satisfactorily answered.

I know squat about local politics up in Warren County, but this is interesting. I haven't heard of any other party organizations getting involved in this debate.

The reference to Leake and Diebold can apparently be traced back this article, which says that Leake and Diebold lobbyist Steve Metcalf have a long-standing friendship. I can vouch for none of the information in that story except to say that Leake's name does show up on a 1998 finance report for a Metcalf-run political committee.

For prior coverage: click here.

This e-mail just went out from the NC Institute for Constitutional Law:

Robert F.Orr, Executive Director of the North Carolina Institute for Constitutional Law (NCICL), announced today that NCICL, representing four individuals and two organizations, has filed a legal challenge to the Lottery Act.

If I'm not mistaken, an appointment made today by Speaker Jim Black means the Lottery Commission is up to its full strength of nine members. From the Speaker's office:

RALEIGH -- N.C. House Speaker Jim Black (D-Mecklenburg) today appointed Max O. Cogburn, Jr. of Asheville to the North Carolina Lottery Commission. Cogburn is an owner of the Pisgah View Ranch in Candler and is a former United States Magistrate Judge for the Western District of North Carolina.

Conservative Greensblogger Guarino suggest North Carolina Republicans need a "Contract with North Carolina" a la the Contract with America that help Newt Gingrich and his fellow Republicans come to power on a national level in 1994.

From today's paper, my story on the pending lawsuit against the lottery.

Now, looking abroad:

Do you remember the Sparta Teapot Museum? This was the place that got a $400,000 grant in the state budget and instantly became everyone's favorite piece of pork. Republicans made great rhetorical use of it during the budget debate, alternately using the phrase "teapot museum" as punch lines and something akin to curse words.

Mark Johnson of the Charlotte Observer points to - wait for it -
a connection between the teapots and House Speaker Jim Black's political fund raising in an article today.(Reg. Req.)

And finally, local Greensblogger and celestial center of our solar system Mr. Sun gets a mention on the site hosted by the bawdy doyenne of national political humor, Wonkette, for his satire of the war on Christmas.

Our friends from the South Carolina branch of the Associated Press report today:

Top South Carolina lottery officials are being paid more than those in many other states, according to an audit released Thursday.

Gov. Mike Easley has appointed:

• Jo Ann Currie of Jamestown to the N.C. Interagency Coordinating Council for Children from Birth to Five with Disabilities and their Families. Currie is a program administrator for preschool children with disabilities with Guilford County Schools. Currie is also a board member of the Association for Retarded Citizens (ARC) of Greensboro and was named ARC of Greensboro Teacher of the Year in 1997.

North Carolina's lottery is slated to join the collective that runs PowerBall, a big multi-state lottery game. Lottery officials voted to join the game this afternoon. Powerball sales in North Carolina could begin the first week in July.

That and other news from Monday's lottery commission meetings in tomorrow's paper.

Update: In case you're interested, Lottery Director Tom Shaheen has picked up some more elves for his workshop, including an HR director and lobbyist. Click here for a list of his latest hires.(MS Word)

Stateline.org recently did a story detailing what the nation's 50 governors say when they send greeting cards this time of year. From the story:

A Stateline.org survey found that 37 of the 50 state leaders – 18 Democrats and 19 Republicans -- are sending wishes for a happy -- nameless -- holiday. Nine governors – two Democrats and seven Republicans -- are explicit in wishing the joy of "Christmas."

It continues:

The distinction between Christmas and holiday cards came to the fore this year when President Bush’s card – featuring a snow-draped White House with no holiday bunting -- was drubbed by conservative activists who claimed the president gave in to political correctness by failing to mention “Christmas.” While the majority of governors’ cards also use all-inclusive holiday language, their messages can’t be categorized as neatly as Santa’s naughty and nice list.

For those of you who are wondering, Gov. Mike Easley's cards read: "At this time of the year, we want to extend our best wishes. May God bless you and your family during this holiday season," according to material that ran with the story giving the text from all the governor's greetings.

Some governors stuck with a simple one line greeting, while others got really wordy. California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee are neck and neck for the verboseness prize.

But it's Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina who wins the award for sending a holiday greeting that also serves as an admonition to his fellow pols: "May we all live honorably, walk humbly, and give abundant thanks to the Lord for our many blessings this holiday season," a quote from Micah 6:8.

Titled in homage to Sergio Leone's 1966 classic western, Democracy North Carolina put out its report on the "The Good, the bad and the ugly" in NC campaign finance news for 2005.

Click here to download the five-page MS Word File.

If you've been paying attention to state politics this year, you'll know a lot of what's here already. Although, if you for some reason you didn't think there was a connection between money, politics and legislative action you'll be shocked, SHOCKED I tell you. An example from the report:

Optometrists gave more than $125,000 to legislative and Council of State candidates in the 2004 election. Fellow optometrist Jim Black received the most – $59,750 – and was instrumental in getting a provision added to the 2005 budget that requires five-year-olds entering public school to receive an eye exam. School officials, pediatricians, and the N.C. Medical Society opposed the measure, pointing out that school children already receive eye tests and the cost of the test (at least $75 per exam) is a needless burden on parents and an annual windfall of $8 million-plus for optometrists.

Read the whole thing. You'll notice a reference or two to the beer industry's campaign giving, a subject I wrote about (with a data assist from Democracy NC) here.

A few updates on lottery-related items:

• There is my story from today's paper that talks about confusion over who will enforce lottery rules, at least to begin with. The lottery law seems straight forward to some, but the folks on the lottery commission seem to think there is some wiggle room in the law.
• If you're aiming to land a lottery contract, or are just curious about them, you can check out the RFPs for instant tickets and for online games. Both of those are PDF files. At least one vendor is complaining about the RFP structure, according to our friends at the N+O.
• And finally, folks, I'm not hiring and I'm not issuing contracts. If you're trying to land a job or want to sell something to the lottery click here or call here: (919) 715-6886.

For those of you following the disagreement over whether the state properly certified voting machine vendors:

The judge in the case threw it out today, finding that the state Board of Elections had complied with the law when it certified Diebold and ES&S to sell voting equipment in the state.

More on this in tomorrow's paper.

A couple quick updates re: voting machines:

• Here's my quick and dirty story from today's paper on yesterday's court ruling that threw out a lawsuit challenging how North Carolina certified companies to sell voting equipment here. There's more I could report on the topic, but other stories that need to get filed for this weekend have to take priority for the moment.
• Why do we keep writing all this stuff about voting machines? I mean aside from last year's problems in Carteret County? Because of things like this.

For more voting machine posts: click here.

Voting machine maker Diebold has withdrawn its bid to sell voting machine in North Carolina. This letter from Charles Owen, division counsel for the company, outlines why. This paragraph essentially sums it up:

On December 1, 2005, the SBE publicly announced that every vendor certified faced issues with respect to the escrow of third-party software. At that time, the SBE proposed a solution to the escrow requirements for third-party software. However, after further analysis, we believe the proposed solution is inconsistent with state law. Moreover, the proposed solution fails to address the requirements imposed on vendors to identify all programmers responsible for creating the third party software to be placed in escrow.

If that doesn't make sense to you, click here for background.

Why do you care? Well, Diebold's withdrawal leaves ES&S as the last voting machine vendor standing in North Carolina. Earlier this year, election officials were saying they thought any one vendor could handle about half the state's business. If any one company tried to handle more than 3/4 of the counties in North Carolina, they'd probably be stretching their resources too thin, the thinking went.

ES&S now has to handle every county - all 100 - in North Carolina. As of this writing I haven't talked to anyone at ES&S who can give me a good idea of what they're capabilities are or what they're plans might be.

Update: (6:25 p.m.) I just got this e-mailed to me from a ES&S company spokeswoman:

We have a long history of helping election officials conduct statewide elections. And we are certainly looking forward to helping North Carolina in 2006. Given that this development just happened, we are currently reviewing the situation and we will be working with the state and local election officials to determine exactly what is needed. Because of our industry leadership and longstanding relationships with many North Carolina counties, we are confident we can provide safe, accurate, and reliable voting systems to North Carolina voters and ensure they comply with the Help America Vote Act.

Keith Long, a contractor working for the state on deploying new voting machines, said he's unsure what the impact of all this will be until state officials talk more with ES&S.

"We probably won't have any meaningful discussions until Tuesday," he said, meaning Dec. 27.

There will be a story in Friday's paper about all this. Now for more background material:

Along with his letter, Owen sent this e-mail to N.C. Election Director Garry Bartlett:

Good afternoon, my name is Chuck Owen, and I am the Division Counsel for Diebold Election Systems, Inc. ("DESI"). Attached to this e-mail you will find a letter in a PDF format for your reference. The substance of the attached letter is to advise you that DESI cannot comply with Session Law 2005-323 as currently drafted, and moving forward to a formal contract would place DESI in a position of violating State law. Therefore, DESI will be unable t o move forward in this procurement process, and we want to advise you of this fact sooner than later. DESI does however want to work with the State Board of Elections for the State of North Carolina in getting the current Session Law revised, so that all vendors will be able to comply with the State Election Law. Furthermore, DESI desires to continue to provide support to DESI's loyal customers in the State of North Carolina; however, until the Session Law is revised DESI will not be able to provide such support to its customers. The foregoing is more specifically addressed in the attached letter.

Please do note hesitate to contact me should you have any questions with regard to the attached letter.

Cordially,
Chuck Owen

As a result of all that, the state board sent this message to counties today:

The State Board felt it was important that you received the information below as soon as possible.

The effect of the following message is that Diebold has withdrawn from the RFP process for the state of North Carolina. You are reminded that the State Board meeting on December 1st, 2005 decertified all equipment in use within the state. This means that equipment currently being sold and/or serviced by Diebold no longer meets certification requirements and cannot be used.

If you need to contact us, please remember that the State Board office will be observing the Christmas holidays of Dec. 23rd and 26th.

I may have more to say on this later. For now, have a happy whatever it is you're celebrating this time of year.

Before getting to the heavy lifting, let me take a minute to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and/or Happy Chanukah (we celebrate both in my house) or whatever it is that you happen to be celebrating this time of year.

Now on to business:

From Sunday's paper, I had a couple of stories (or a story and a sidebar if you want get all newsy on me) about lessons learned from other states that have had lotteries. Update:I have links to the stories now. I'd post links to them here, but apparently our web site had a little too much virtual eggnog last night and hasn’t updated with new stuff yet. I'll post links when I get 'em. (In the mean time, consider running out to pick up that old fashion paper thingy that comes with all the glossy after Christmas sale ads inside.)

• One outlines the big state budget shell game that lotteries can become. It also points out how one state – Georgia – did things at least pretty much right. Click here for that one.
• The sidebar looks at a potential side effect of having a lottery, one that worries local school districts. If people hear the lottery is taking care of educational needs enough, they may stop backing local school bond referenda. Click here for that one.

A big note on both those stories is that they have almost nothing to do with the conduct of the lottery itself. Rather, they look at the consequences of what people do with the lottery money once it’s raked in.

The background for this story fills a couple of accordion file folders. But here are some of the best selections from the read-it-yourself department:

• This is the New York State auditor's report from 1998 that I mention in the story. (It's a PDF, kind of big.) The best quote in the whole thing comes from the transmittal letter: "Even today, a new lottery advertising campaign perpetuates the myth that schools receive additional resources from the lottery. The truth is that the Legislature and Governor decide how much state aid will go to local schools and the amount from the lottery is just a small part of that total. Lottery money has never supplemented state aid; it doesn’t today and it likely never will."
• There are a lot of academic studies out there on lotteries. Some are pretty clear, while others are down right obtuse. Rodney Stanley, of Tennessee State University (and a Greensboro-area native) has done some of what I think is the most straight-forward work on his subject. In this paper, he argues "state operated lotteries are failing to offer substantial benefits to students due to the issue of fungibility, and the small portion of actual dollars generated by the lottery for education."
• Just to provide a counter-weight, this paper from Stanford suggests dedicating lottery spending for education does drive up over-all education spending (another PDF) concluding: "While the political motivation for earmarking legislation may revolve around gaining and maintaining political support for operating a lottery, this paper suggests that earmarking profits will in fact have real implications for educational spending in states." This conclusion seems to be the minority report on the topic.
• More locally, Charlotte Advocates for Education has done some work that that cleaves closely to Stanley's conclusions. This group is keen on seeing the legislature pass a constitutional amendment to safeguard the lottery’s proceeds.

If you have questions about any of that source material, or where you can find more, drop me a line in the comments section below.

The big disappointment for me in this story is not landing one interview: Zell Miller. Before he was a U.S. Senator and an - um - well known political convention speaker, he was governor of Georgia when that state's lottery came about. Since Georgia keeps getting cited for doing things right, I would have really liked to have gotten his insight on the topic. Alas, it was not to be.

As for what the rest of the state was talking about this weekend:

• Sharif Durhams at the Charlotte paper writes about some western legislators call for a special session to consider dropping the rate on the state's gas tax. Sharif writes that Gov. Easley's office was cool to that idea. This idea will have a hard time getting traction because the cost-benefit equation doesn't look that good in the harsh light of day. Most figures I've seen say an average family might get somewhere between $15 and - being generous - $50 back a year, but the account that pays for state road construction would lose millions of dollars. Still, it's a proposed tax cut on what has become a high-dollar item, so look for this idea to get a lot of chatter in coming months. Click here for AP's story on the topic.
• From the world’s smallest fiddle section, our friends south of the border seem to think that NC’s new lottery will cut into their sales.

Right, that's enough of that. It's time for me to help my boy play with his new train set see what Santa left in my stocking.

There should be a short story in tomorrow's (Wednesday's) paper that is pegged to N.C. Democratic Party Chairman Jerry Meek urging local boards of elections to go with optical scan equipment. I need to give a tip o' the hat to the person who originally e-mailed me the letter, but don't know if that person necessarily wants the recognition.

I have no idea whether others have reported this - the letter is dated Dec. 8 - but I hadn't seen it until last week. Meek's letter is interesting to me because you don't see a whole lot of other high profile political types weighing on this around here.

See a PDF of the letter by clicking here.

Meek said that issues surrounding voting machines were by far the issue upon which rank-and-file constituents contacted him the most since he took office in the Spring.

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Cap beat is taking an end-of-year break but will be back on Friday. In the mean time, lottery watchers should keep an eye out for stories out of Wednesday's N.C. Lottery Commission meeting. The commission had cancelled the remainder of its meetings for the year, so it will be interesting to see what they felt the need to teleconference about.

See y'all back here on Dec. 30.