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October 23, 2008

Election resource

Our friends over at UNC-TV have been busting tail to video a bunch of interviews with candidates in federal and statewide races this fall. Along with the N.C. Center for Voter Education they've put together a pretty cool website covering the election, where you can find debate archives, PBS NewsHour reports, and other things of interest if you happen to be among the undecided.

Click here for the homepage.

Note to Doug and other court fans: They have interviews with candidates for Court of Appeals and Supreme Court.

And, just by the way, the News & Record's own election page is right here.

October 13, 2008

Wonk out!

Can't get enough of the elections? Want to spend time with folks in the same boat? UNCG has your hook-up:

‘Another Democratic Wave?’: UNCG Offers Elections Lecture Oct. 29

GREENSBORO, NC - The Department of Political Science and The Center for Legislative Studies at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro continue their fall lecture series Wednesday, Oct. 29, with a public lecture by Dr. Patrick Sellers of Davidson College.
Sellers will speak on “Congressional Elections 2008: Another Democratic Wave?” His lecture begins at 7:30 p.m. in the Weatherspoon Art Museum Auditorium.

The event is free and open to the public. A reception follows the lecture, and free parking is available behind the art museum.

Sellers’ lecture is the second of three in the series. Dr. Alan Abramowitz of Emory University will provide a post-election analysis Wednesday, Nov. 19, titled “The Presidential Election 2008: What Happened and Why?”

For more information, call (336) 334-4360.

October 9, 2008

State says voter rolls story is bogus

Cross-posted from Capital Beat.

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This New York Times story has gotten people's attention this morning. It suggests that North Carolina is somehow using Social Security numbers to exclude people form the voter rolls.

State and local election officials I talked to this morning say that's simply not the case. I just posted this to online:

A report in the New York Times this morning saying that North Carolina is improperly using Social Security Numbers to vet voters was called “very misleading” by the state’s chief election official this morning.

The Times story said that North Carolina had been warned that it was checking an abnormally large number of social security numbers against a federal database and that federal officials were worried the state could be improperly excluding voters.

But Elections Director Gary Bartlett said Social Security Numbers were only being checked in the case where a drivers’ license or other acceptable form of identification has not been provided.

“We believe we’re in full compliance and they’re providing misinformation and stirring up the public and that is not good,” Bartlett said. The story, he said, has caused a non-stop stream of calls and e-mails to his office this morning.

North Carolina has registered more than 700,000 new voters since the beginning of the year and may top 800,000 by Nov. 1. Of those, about 400,000 have been run through the federal Social Security database.

The state, Bartlett said, had a high number of universities, military personnel and businesses that bring people in from out of state. Often those people don’t have drivers’ likenesses when they register to vote and therefore use their Social Security Number to verify their identity.

No one is denied registration if their Social Security number does not match said Bartlett and local elections officials.

“The worse case scenario is they show ID at the polls when they show up,” said Charlie Collicutt, deputy elections director in Guilford County.

If a voter still doesn’t have identification on Election Day, Bartlett said, they would be allowed to vote a provision ballot that will be counted once their information is confirmed.

Names are not removed from the voter rolls based on a Social Security number mismatch, said both state and county officials.

Bartlett said the state was contacted by neither the New York Times nor federal officials and today’s story was a surprise.

“No one has called us, no one has suggested we’re not in compliance,” Bartlett said.

Update: Three bits of updates for you:

  • * A news release from Bob Hall at Democracy North Carolina taking up for the State Board of Elections:

    The harder problem continues to be cynical rumors and false information from ill-informed, sometimes well-intended, sources, now including the New York Times (and local re-printers who failed to check the story with state election officials). Certainly, there have been serious problems with lost ballots and election manipulation. The public should remain vigilant, and individuals with any doubts should confirm their registration status through websites like 2008ElectionConnection.com or by calling their local board of elections. What we don’t need are inflammatory stories about stolen elections or cheated voters that have no basis in fact.

  • * A news release from Elections Director Gary Bartlett who gives in detail, and three part harmony, why the Times story was incorrect, at least as it pertains to North Carolina:

    No reporter for either publication contacted any one in this office to verify North Carolina’s procedures. Nor did the Commissioner of the Social Security Administration contact us before he released his allegations that North Carolina may be preventing voters from registering; instead he sent a letter to the Secretary of State, who does not administer elections in North Carolina, and we had to obtain a copy from a national organization.

  • * And for you fun with numbers types, click here for the spreadsheet that started the mess.

Regarding that last bit, the folks at the Social Security Administration sent me that Excel file in response to my questions about what exactly they were thinking. Their press release is here, but essentially they said higher than expected usage of the database caught their attention.

Those higher volumes, according to administration spokesman Mark Lassiter, prompted worries that states may be improperly keeping people from registering to vote.

“It really was an issue of saying, ‘Look, we want to be sure that nobody who is registered to vote is prevented from doing so,’” Lassiter said.

Fair enough, I guess, but it basically sort of cast aspersions on the whole electoral process here in North Carolina without producing any evidence that anything was done wrong.

A few notes from the numbers game:

  • * If you look at that spreadsheet, you'll see less than a quarter of the checks are coming up mismatched. So, if you're looking to exclude folks, this social security method wouldn't be the best way to go about it.

  • * One thing that neither the New York Times nor Bartlett pointed out today was that this is North Carolina's first time as a battleground state in a presidential campaign. So in addition to military voters, college students and new people moving to the state, you're going to be registering a higher than normal number of people who have never voted before.

September 22, 2008

You're so political

Cross-posted from Capital Beat

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News that President Bush was due to visit Greensboro later this month got me thinking about why the Gate City is such as popular stop for pols. (Barack and Michelle Obama have been here and John McCain stopped by for a fundraiser earlier this year.)

Perhaps this interactive map from Men's Health provides an explanation. As my friend and colleague Mike Fuchs wrote recently:

Greensboro is pretty good at playing politics, so says a recent magazine survey.

Men's Health magazine ranked Greensboro as the sixth most political city in the nation.

That's based on factors including the percentage of citizens registered to vote, the percentage who participated in the most recent senatorial and gubernatorial elections, the 2004 presidential election and the 2008 presidential primaries.

So who's number 1? Raleigh.

"Clarence Lightner would be proud," the magazine says. "He was the pioneering politician who in 1973 became one of the first African American mayors of a Southern city - one in which a majority of voters were white. As it turns out, not much has changed in 35 years: Raleigh's residents will vote as if they're about to make history."

April 2, 2008

Big registration numbers for Dems

Jack Betts and James Romoser take note of recent voter registration trends. From Romoser's Trail Mix blog:

Just 3 percent of the 9,000-plus voters who registered between March 23 and March 29 were Republicans. (Overall, about 34 percent of North Carolina’s voters are registered as Republicans.) Clearly one would expect an influx of Democratic registrations in advance of the contested presidential primary — and other states have seen that trend - but such a large disparity (62 percent vs. 3 percent) is pretty staggering.

I think it's significant though not surprising. The presidential campaigns of Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have focused on registering new voters and Obama's has in particular become known for turning out new voters. Frankly, there's nothing on the Republican side of the ticket that is as big of a draw and no one on the state level - Republican or Democrat - who has the kind of resources that the two presidential campaigns have just begun to mobilize.

The question for Dems is whether all those new voters will stick with the party in November, presuming at least some of them are going to see their choice for president fall in the primary.

The questions for Republicans is how to match that kind of voter recruitment and enthusiasm.

February 29, 2008

Filing closed

According to the clock on my wall, filing closed a few minutes ago. We'll be sorting through the races and bringing you an election snapshot in tomorrow's paper.

In the mean time, which races are you looking forward to? What do you want to know more about? Where's the big battle?

Is it the contest for Kay Hagan's old state senate seat that pits Don Vaughan against Joe Wilson? Are you looking out for the home-town kids involved in statewide races, like Eric Smith of Reidsville going for State Superintendent of Public Instruction?

Drop us a line.

January 9, 2008

You watching?

Is anyone local to Greensboro planning to watch tonight's debate among the candidates for governor? If so, drop me a line at mark.binker@news-record.com.

January 1, 2008

Religion and politics

This headline from the TurboFaith blog caught my attention: "It's 2008-Pray For Elections."

We need to be spending time before God and finding out who we need to support in the 2008 election- I am asking God to raise up 2 Born Again, Holy Ghost filled, Christian men to take the office of President and Vice President and also Born Again, Christian men and women to be elected to the House Of Representatives and Senate! Also the same thing in all local and state level elections!- This country IS the greatest country on earth and I personally want to see it remain that way! If you are a Christian, please join with me in this awesome task. Pray! Seek Gods will and then get to it! Get out and vote!

Click here to read the whole post.

Certainly C.L. Tucker Jr. is not the first person to put forward such a position. Religion and politics have been mixing for a long, long time. Consider Guarino's recent take emerging (or not) differences among evangelical voters:

(Read more after the jump).

Continue reading "Religion and politics" »

December 20, 2007

You Decide

Yup, it's another blog. Welcome to Decision 2008, the News & Record's campaign blog for the coming year. If it's on the ballot, we'll probably be writing about it here.

Who's we?

Well, right now is me, Mark Binker, state government reporter and author of the Capital Beat blog. I'm kicking things off because many state and federal campaigns began ridiculously early and are already in full swing. Heck, the Iowa Caucuses are less than three weeks away.

Joining in will be our reporters covering elections for everything from High Point City Council, to the county commissioners and school board and judicial elections. I'll let them introduce themselves when they log in.

Oh, and you. Not only are the comment lines always open, but we're open to suggestions, tips, criticisms, etc... Have a short piece of political thought? Depending on what you serve up, we just may post it here.

Need some practice? Click on the comment link below and let me know what you're reading about any state or federal campaign. Who should be on our blog roll? What's the best undiscovered political site out there? Don't want to comment? E-mail me at mbinker@news-record.com.

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