Rep. Marvin Lucas isn't sure if he's going to vote for his own bill.

When the Cumberland County Democrat first filed House Bill 359 in February of 2007, it was entitled a bill to "Restore Flexibility to School Calendar."

As it was then written, the bill would give local school boards back the power to start and end the school year when they wanted. A previous bill, backed by the tourism industry, had set the start date as no earlier than Aug. 25.

Lucas, a former teacher and principal, said that means some school districts hold finals after the winter break, which is not ideal for students.

The bill passed the House in April of 2007, but when it came back from the Senate this week all mentions of school calendars had been stripped. The new title: "An Act to Promote American Citizenship Efforts by Encouraging Voting by Eligible High School Students."

"It's been gutted," Lucas said. "It no longer bears any resemblance to the one we sent over."

He said he'll have to read the bill to see what's in it before he decides whether to vote to concur with the Senate version this afternoon.

Thomas F. Schaller argues that Barack Obama is wasting his time in North Carolina.

In a guest column in The New York Times today, the author of "Whistling Past Dixie" writes that even vastly increased black turnout will not be enough for the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee to win Southern states.

He argues that black voters actually already vote at a higher rate than their white peers, while the higher percentages of black voters in Southern states makes white voters more likely to cast their ballots for the Republican candidate. 

"Mr. Obama can write off Georgia and North Carolina for the same reasons that Mississippi is beyond his reach — although the math in those two states is slightly less daunting," he writes. 

The one exception is Virginia, which has seen a "huge influx of upscale non-Southerners."

That's true in North Carolina — been to Cary lately? — but perhaps not in large enough numbers to make a difference here given the other factors cited by Schaller.

The State Board of Elections says to register as a Libertarian now.

Deputy elections director Johnnie Mclean says that registered voters can change their party affiliation to the Libertarian Party even though the widely available state forms do not include it as an option, simply by writing its name in.

"Anybody can do that now," she said.

State Libertarians have complained that the form does not include them, since it was created before the party was re-recognized, arguing it is slowing down re-affiliations. But Mclean said it could be months before new forms are available.

She told Dome that the state software's form-creating software has to be reset and new forms printed and sent to the U.S. Department of Justice, which preclears any North Carolina forms for potential civil rights violations.

The state board plans to print the new forms in the next two to three weeks, and it can take another 60 days after that for the federal government to OK them.

Currently, only 29 Libertarians are registered in North Carolina.

Mike Munger says the state is "dragging its feet" on Libertarian registrations.

The Libertarian gubernatorial nominee and Duke University political science professor tells Dome that the party had more than 13,000 registered voters in 2005.

When the Libertarians lost party status, those voters became unaffiliated, though they should be able to re-register now that it is a party again. But Munger says some of the state's largest boards of elections have not yet posted the forms online to allow it.

"How can we register people as Libertarian when they won't change the forms?" he writes in an e-mail. "The state is intentionally dragging its feet, in violation of the law, and the expressed will of more than 100,000 voters."

As of 8:45 a.m. today, the Wake County board of elections' online form did not include the Libertarian Party, listing only Democratic, Republican and unaffiliated. The Mecklenburg County form and the Guilford County form also lacked the Libertarian option.

The party was recognized in late May, but had only 29 registered members as of this morning.

The number of registered Libertarians has more than doubled.

But don't get too excited — it's only gone from 5 to 11.

As recently as Monday, the State Board of Elections reported only a handful of people registered to the political party, which was only re-recognized in late May.

Deputy elections director Johnnie Mclean said that the state board only recently got the forms together to allow people to re-register, so it will take a while before the party bounces back.

No word yet on whether Mike Munger is one of the 11. 

At least a few unaffliated voters have reported problems when they went to vote today in the Democratic primary runoff for state labor commissioner.

Registered Democrats, unaffiliated voters who chose Democratic ballots in the May primary and unaffiliated voters who did not vote in May are eligible to participate today in the runoff for labor commissioner.

But in Wake County, several unaffiliated voters who cast Democratic ballots in May at Millbrook Exchange Park discovered a discrepancy in election records this morning.

The records incorrectly showed that they had cast unaffiliated ballots in May when they actually voted in the Democratic primary. The voters were allowed to cast provisional ballots today; in the meantime, elections officials will verify that they voted Democratic in May.

Wake Elections Director Cherie Poucher said election officials in May may have incorrectly marked a document called an "authorization to vote," erroneously recording an unaffiliated ballot when a voter actually asked for a Democratic ballot. However, election officials will be able to research other records that will show which ballot the voters received in May, she said.

Poucher said she had not received complaints about the issue this morning and assumed that the problem was not widespread.

Why did Barack Obama beat Hillary Clinton?

Unlike the governor's races, it's a little easier to figure out how the senator from Illinois beat the senator from New York in North Carolina's presidential primary. 

With the help of political columnist Rob Christensen, here are five:

He had ground game. Obama had 81 offices, 300 paid staffers and 15,300 volunteers — the biggest N.C. ground operation since 1984. Clinton had 20 offices and 50 paid staffers.

Demographics favored him. Obama did very well with African-American voters, who made up one-third of the primary electorate, and the college-educated.

He advertised heavily. Obama had nine ads in heavy rotation. Clinton had six ads that were not on the air as much. His ads focused on issues; hers on personalities.

The gas tax gambit failed. Clinton put all her chips on a reduction in the gas tax that was roundly criticized by economists. Obama effectively portrayed it as a gimmick. 

He got out the early vote. Obama pushed heavily on the state's new early voting option. Lines were longer at some sites than on Election Day, and nearly a half-million voted that way.

How much did female solidarity affect down-ballot races?

It's hard to quantify, but we know that Hillary Clinton drew a lot of women to the polls on Tuesday, despite losing to Barack Obama.

We also know that among low- to medium-information voters, one of the only things you can tell about a candidate from looking at the ballot is gender. (You cannot necessarily do the same with race.)

Looking at the dropoff in the down-ballot races, Dome noticed something of a natural experiment that might help quantify the effect of women voters.

The two partisan races with the biggest dropoff from the presidential race were insurance commissioner and labor commissioner. Coincidentally, one of those two races had no female candidates, while the other had two. (There were no women in the lieutenant governor's race as well.)

The dropoff was not as substantial in the races for state treasurer, state auditor and schools superintendent.

To pick the two that are most comparable, neither state auditor nor insurance commissioner are offices in which the average voter has a strong opinion. Both were two-person races without an incumbent. None of the candidates advertised heavily on television and all are relying on public financing.

But 1,253,251 people voted in the auditor's race, while only 1,223,609 voted in the insurance commissioner's race — a difference of 29,642 votes. That's a little less than 2 percent of the total Democratic voters.

Complicating factors: The incumbent auditor is a Republican who Democrats are eager to unseat. Insurance Commissioner Wayne Goodwin previously ran for statewide office and had a small TV ad buy. Ballot order may have affected voting rates.

Correction: An earlier version of this post misstated the number of women in the labor commissioner's race.