News-Record.com

As Greensboro City Council prepares to take polygraph exams this week, here's a Washington Post story on the validity and uses of polygraph tests.

Here's the Web site of the American Polygraph Association, including answers to some frequently asked questions about how polygraphs work. (This is a membership association for polygraph examiners, so take that for what you will.)

Council member Sandy Carmany weighs in on her blog, including a request of the News & Record.

You might ask yourself why we here at Inside Scoop would dedicate a crack team to live blogging Election Day today.

Well, we're not.

Nope, the live blogging won't start until sometime in the early afternoon (whenever I haul my lazy rear into the office) and will be done by the same irascible so-and-sos who usually write the government news for us. The crack team is off elsewhere.

We'll eventually set up shop at the commissioner's meeting room at the Old County courthouse tonight, although the crowd will probably be a bit limited there. Topics will include state legislative races, the fightin’ U.S. 13th and local elections.

I have no idea what this is going to look like...we've not live-blogged much before and there's still the small matter of putting out tomorrow's newspaper. But what's the worse that can happen, giving a hand-full of caffeine fueled, stressed out reporters with a penchant for being smart Alecs on deadline a direct pipeline to the outside world?

We'll see you back here this afternoon, probably three-ish. In the mean time, drop us a line in the comments section below if you have some Election Day trivia (or even news) for us.

It has come to my attention that somehow the combination of live blogging and politics makes people thirst fora drinking game for some reason. Well, this here is a family blog and I don’t want to be accused of corrupting our younger readers or endangering people who might take this literally. So all of you folks -- look away.

For the rest of you, here are the rules for the Guilford County Primary Day 2006 drinking game (to be applied only once you’re safely at home and the dogs have buried your car keys in the back yard somewhere):

• If you have a campaign sign in your yard, have a beer.
• If you worked a polling place today, have two.
• Every time you hear Vernon Robinson say something nasty about Brad Miller, take a sip. (Really, pace yourself.)
• If you hear someone griping about how they wish Hoggard had run for school board, mix up some mint juleps and head directly for your porch to chew the fat about what all the primary results mean.
• If the people that you’re hanging out with cheer in response to election related news, take a drink.
• If you meet a candidate, take a drink. If a voting machine ate your vote, swish a drink around in your mouth then spit it out.
• If you meet someone who is furiously dialing to cast their vote for American Idol but didn’t vote in today’s election, give up all hope for our democracy and finish your beverage.
• If someone asks you which appellate court candidate is from Guilford County and you can answer correctly as per the official judicial voter guide, you have permission to open the top shelf booze.
• If you’re wearing an “I Voted” sticker and someone asks you if you did, in fact, vote, hand them your dregs and go get a fresh beverage.
• If Linda Shaw falls behind in her County Commissioner primary, throw your drink at the person standing next to you.
• If the election you care about will go to a run off, drink a pint of vodka and spend the rest of the night convalescing on County Government Reporter Nate DeGraff's sofa.
• If Elections Director George Gilbert starts hooking people up to lie detectors, tap a keg and cry all night about the demise of representative democracy as we know it.
• If perennial candidate Joe Rahenkamp wins, finish all beverages on hand.

Note: updates posted in reverse chronological order.

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(10 p.m.) Okay folks, it’s time to put out the paper and we have a couple of funky races coming down to the wire. Check back here in the morning for links to all the stories. And more updates will be on the main page: www.news-record.com

And remember, the Guilford County results you are seeing do not include mail-in absentee, curb-side or provisional ballots.

Have a good night.

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(9:41 p.m.) The Senate 26 race between Ken Hux of Rockingham and Rick Miller of Guilford County is coming down to the wire.

But memo to Sen. Katie Dorsett: If you have 88 percent of the vote with only two precincts out, it’s okay to claim victory.

Memo to all poll watchers: there are at least 82 votes (mail in absentee ballots) that you are not seeing in your vote totals at home.

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(9:08 p.m.) I think we can safely call a few races. Sen. Katie Dorsett will remain Senator. She’s winning her primary by a large margin and has no Republican challenger come fall.

And Sheriff BJ Barnes appears to have an easy win in his Republican nomination fight.

On the other end of the spectrum, the Democratic sheriff’s race looks to be going to a run off unless something changes real darn fast.

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(8:42 p.m.)Pol watch: Candidates Berkley Blanks, BJ Barnes, James Zimmerman, Samuel Spagnola, Katie Dorsett are in the house.
Blogger watch: Jerry McClough is here talking up his new PAC, the TRIAD IMPAC.
Supporter watch: Supporters of both DA candidates, Hejazi and Henderson, are here.
Media watch: All us folks from the N+R are here, along with the Rhino and HPE and some kind of lost looking television folks.
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(8:34 p.m.) The BOE appears to have things under control, expect results shortly.

By the way, Scoop just say former County Commissioner Bob Landreth in the hallway. When we asked, “what are you running for,” Landreth quipped, “HOME.”

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(8:28 p.m.) Sooo...you might be wondering where the results are. At this point in the evening, the county usually have a fair amount of precinct reporting to the web already.

Well, they’re stacking up the cartridges from the voting machines just fine. However, there seems to be a problem with the database that collects all that data. Elections Director George Gilbert and his staff are working to fix this, but he doesn’t look like a happy man right now.

Meanwhile, at the courthouse, more than two dozen pols and operatives wait with baited breath. Oh, and some journalists are griping that they’re going to blow their deadlines.

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(8:11 p.m.) Still no results, but there are about a dozen people milling about the courthouse now.

By the way, if you want to see results without the annoying scroll, click here.

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(8 p.m.) No results yet, but they’re working on it, so soon. I'm told to expect a few bumps along the way, as they learn to process they extra gear from the new voting equipment.
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(7:44 p.m.) Sen. Katie Dorsett is in the house!
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(7:42 p.m.) Well, the crowd here at the courthouse is less than a crow. Sheriff BJ Barnes is on hand, along with three reporters and two other onlookers. But it’s early yet, it takes folks a while to get in from the polls. As of this writing, no results are in yet.
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(7:15 p.m.) You have 15 minutes to go vote, if you haven’t already.

Meanwhile, it’s time for the Scoop crew to pack up and head to the courthouse for an exciting evening of results watching. See you after the 7:30 p.m. turn.

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(6:45 p.m.) Why are we paying so much attention to the Democratic primary in the Guilford County District Attorney race?

One reason: no Republican has won the post since 1962, says courts reporter Eric Collins.

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(6:37 p.m.)From intrepid County Govt. Reporter Nate DeGraff:

The winner of the Republican primary for District 3 county commissioner will be favored to win in November, when that person will square off against Democrat Ray Riffe.

Why? Well, unlike Guilford County as a whole, which is overwhelmingly Democratic, the 40,000 registered voters in District 3 include 4,500 more Republicans than Democrats. That’s good news for tonight’s winner.

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(6:13 p.m.) Here are more links to election results from around the region from N+R web guru Michael Grossman:

• Guilford County
  
• Rockingham County
  
• Alamance County
  
• Forsyth County

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(6:04 p.m.) Scoop just heard from Guilford County elections director George Gilbert. The county’s new voting machines seem to be working well so far, he said.

“We’ve had fewer problems than I anticipated with more than 600 new pieces of equipment,” Gilbert said.

Problems? Problems? What problems George?

“The biggest problem is keeping the printers running. They occasionally jam,” Gilbert said.

For those coming late to the game, having a paper record for each electronic ballot cast was a big point of debate at the state and local levels. The idea was that if the computers were boom (either malfunctioned or were intentionally messed with) a paper record would stand to testify how people really voted.

Gilbert didn’t like the idea of paper ballots – he testified vigorously against using them – but passed up the opportunity to say “I told you so.” Yeah, he was pretty much thinking it, but it was still nice of him to take a pass.

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(4:32 p.m.) Neither of Guilford County’s two sitting Republican state House members have primaries tonight. But in some parts of the state, those GOP legislative primaries are where the real action is. As Gary Pearce over at Talking About Politics put it:

For years now, Pope Republicans and Morgan Republicans have fought a civil war. It’s like the Shiites and Sunnis without the bombings.

Click here for more background.
It will be interesting to see whether this primary fight finally purges the bad blood in the state GOP, or becomes just one more bump in the rocky relationship between the two factions.

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(4:15 p.m.) Sometime after 7:30 p.m., you should be able to find online election results at the following spots:

• From Guilford County BOE.
  
• From the state BOE.

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(3:51 p.m.) As of about 3:30 p.m. or so, I've heard no reports of major problems with new voting equipment here in Guilford County or elsewhere. Anyone? Bueller?

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(3:45 p.m.) Click here for a drinking game for this evening.

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(3:17 p.m.) We have word from our Rockingham bureau that election results may be slower than normal coming in tonight. According to Rockingham Editor Bill Hancock, precincts used to send their results to headquarters via dial up. Under their new system, precinct officials have to drive into their main office. Also, a sizeable number of voters have apparently been reassigned to new precincts lately, which is expected to cause some delays. Results from our neighbors to the north are expected to post sometime around 9:30 p.m. (Guilford County has always had this issue, although the BOE posts rolling updates throughout the evening, starting shortly after 7:30 p.m. with early voting totals.)

In addition to their local races, Rockingham results figure into Senate District 26 (the Democrats vying to run against Phil Berger this fall) and U.S. House 13.

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(2:55 p.m.) Before I get calls from The Chalkboard folks, no there are no school board primaries today. You’ll have to wait until November to vent your education-related frustration at the polls.

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(12:58 p.m.)As mentioned earlier, we here at Inside Scoop are live blogging the primary. How is live blogging any different from, you know, regular blogging? We’re aiming to update frequently with fascinating tid bits that keep you coming back for more. All the updates will be put into the same post (this one) and start below the introduction.

For those unfamiliar with the concept, click here for a fine, if snarky, example.

A few house keeping notes.

• First, there IS an election today, no matter how cleverly the authorities appear to have concealed it from all but 7 percent of eligible voters. Those who show up will in some cases choose the winners as there is no opposition in the fall (as in the Senate District 28 primary) while others will be choosing contestants for the general election.

• Polls will be open until 7:30 p.m., so read up here and here and then go vote.

Now that’s taken care of, updates will start sometime late this afternoon and getting more frequent as polls close.

In case you haven't found them already, click here for our results stories.

And thanks to those of you who tuned into the live blog last night.

This just in from George Gilbert, Guilford County elections director:

"Mr. Bob Hinson today requested, in writing, a runoff in the Democratic Party Sheriff's contest. Subject to confirmation of results, the runoff will be held on May 30, 2006."

More on the sheriff's race here and here.

The Greensboro Symphony has been doing its part to round support for a proposed renovation to War Memorial Auditorium as part of a likely November bond referendum.

Here's the sample letter they're asking supporters to send to City Council members.

The symphony is advocating for the full $40 million renovation, which includes a parking garage. But at this point, council members seem to support a $36 million renovation that omits the garage.

The full list of possible projects follows after the jump. Council will next discuss bond projects at 4 p.m. May 16 prior to its regular meeting.

As noted at Greensboro101 and Hogg's Blog, a group of Greensboro residents is requesting the public release of a police investigative report, known as the RMA report for the consulting firm that prepared it.

The leak of this report to the News & Record is the one that triggered last week's round of polygraph exams for council members.

The agenda for Thursday's meeting is available here.

The commissioners will get the recommended budget from county manager Willie Best and consider incentives for Roy Carroll's Wachovia building project.

And, at the behest of Republican Steve Arnold, the board will consider ordering up "a study to assess the financial impact of illegal aliens on Guilford County Government ..."

Given recent events, that could create some lively discussion.

Meeting starts at 7:30 p.m.

Update (5/11, 11:39 p.m.): No immigrant study. Arnold's plan was voted down. More on the budget and Roy Carroll's project, which was approved, in tomorrow's paper.

All 174 pages of Guilford County's 2006-07 recommended budget are online. County commissioners will pass the final version next month.

As you might expect, the budget is not very racy. But if you're curious, and you've got a few minutes, spending some time with the budget really helps you understand how county government works.

Our most recent story on the budget is here.

If you're interested in reading the full list of recommendations presented at Tuesday night's City Council meeting by a Greensboro Transit Authority budget task force, you can click here. (Sorry for the delay - we were having some technical difficulties with the blogs Wednesday.)

Also, in response to a question at Tuesday's meeting from blogger Ben Holder, City Manager Mitchell Johnson said the city isn't pursuing a purchase of the Canada Dry property adjoining the Greensboro Coliseum. (Full disclosure time: the property's owners include the wife of News & Record Editor John Robinson.) The Canada Dry site had been thought of as a potential site for an ACC Hall of Champions.

Here's a link to check out the full text of the budget proposal made Tuesday night by Greensboro City Manager Mitchell Johnson.

(It's a big PDF file - 159 pages.)

Greensboro City Council will hold its monthly briefing session at 8:30 a.m. Tuesday, getting the morning off to a slightly earlier start than Scoop might like (but you're not here to hear me complain).

Two topics on the agenda:

1) They'll discuss the work they did in committees of three reviewing spending by each city department, which could have some influence on the 2006-07 budget they approve next month. (Here's our coverage of the city manager's proposed budget and the full text of the manager's proposal.)

2) They'll also discuss the recommendations made by a Greensboro Transit Authority budget task force.

Most of the unhappiness at last week's council meeting about the recommendations stemmed from the proposal to eliminate a $35/month unlimited ride pass for Specialized Community Area Transportation service riders. SCAT provides bus service for riders with disabilities who are unable to use the regular GTA service.

Some SCAT riders who spoke up at last week's council meeting said dumping the unlimited pass would make the service unaffordable for them.

The search for a county administrator is over - in Broward County, Fla.

Commissioners in the sprawling South Florida region hired Pam Brangaccio as their top executive, the Sun-Sentinel reports.

That's notable because Guilford County Manager Willie Best was a finalist for the post before pulling out over the weekend.

In other Guilford news, Sharron Kurtz, who had been serving as interim county attorney since February, was promoted to the county's top legal job Tuesday.