Guilford County

Munger: State dragging its feet

ryanteaguebeckwith — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 08:54:05 -0400

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.

Smith wins another straw poll

ryanteaguebeckwith — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 16:40:46 -0400

Fred Smith has won another straw poll.

The Republican gubernatorial candidate was the top vote-getter at the Guilford County Lincoln Day Dinner on Saturday.

He picked up 62 votes, while Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory got 35, former Supreme Court Justice Bob Orr got 14 and Salisbury attorney Bill Graham got two.

Smith has also won straw polls in at least eight counties — Buncombe, Wake, Henderson, Catawba, Rutherford, Cleveland, McDowell and Graham — as well as at the state party's Hall of Fame dinner in Cary.

Orr, meantime, won the Swain County Lincoln-Reagan Day event, where he was keynote speaker.

Update: Smith also won straw polls at the Wayne County and Carteret County conventions.

Paper jams cause voting problems

ryanteaguebeckwith — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 08:28:37 -0500

Some voting equipment in North Carolina doesn't work well.

The state required paper ballots after a loss of 4,400 votes in Carteret County in 2004. In some cases, counties use hand-marked ballots, but in others they use touch-screen machines with a paper roll similar to a cash-register tape.

But the paper rolls have a tendency to get jammed.

In Guilford County, nine percent of the machines had a paper jam in 2006. Mecklenburg County officials estimated they had 50 or 60 jams.

"It's definitely not as reliable as your cash register tape or your ATM machine," said Joyce McCloy, founder of the N.C. Coalition for Verified Voting. (Char-O)