The WDN is out to lunch on Limited Voting | Eastern North Carolina Now

     Publisher's Note: We do very much appreciate this fine article on part of the the truth regarding Beaufort County's "Limited Voting" from our friends of the Beaufort Observer.

When liberals can't go headup in the arena of ideas, they seek to suppress conservative representation

    We've got a lot of problems in this county that really need something done about them, but the way we elect county commissioners is not one of them. And if the Washington Daily News had read the recently material furnished it (and the Observer) by the County Manager on how the "Limited Voting" system came to be, what the alternatives are and then applied some common sense they would not have allowed their hatred for Hood Richardson and Stan Deatherage to compel them to editorialize as they did in Sunday's (12-26-10) edition of the paper.

    The headline for the lead article is a perfect example. "Limited voting brings limited choices" they pen. Yep. That's true. But so does every other electoral method. In fact, the one they seem to be pushing (districts) limits choices even more. In the district system, as used by the school board, you get to vote for only one of nine board members and then only every other election. In the 2010 election one seat was elected by 2.6% of the registered voters. The lowest winning commissioner seat got four times as many votes as the school board member elected via districts. By mathematical definition that is a significantly more limited choice than voting for two commissioners, one every two years.

    Then in their editorial the WDN suggests that the "quality" of candidates would be better in a district system. Well, do tell. Have our colleagues at the WDN not observed what has happened the last four elections for the school board? Just this past time there really was not a contested race for any of the seats. And that's typical. In a typical election year several school board districts do not even have contested races, and where those that do, one can argue that the "quality" of the school board members is not appreciably superior to the county commissioners. After all it was this electoral system that produced a school board that went six million dollars over budget on the school bonds and in four years turned a million surplus in Food Service to a half million deficit. And after all it was the electoral system the WDN espouses that hired Jeff Moss and took four years to get rid of him. Need we offer more evidence? But remember, it was consistently Hood and Stan that kept warning the county about Moss while the WDN supported him and his spending.

    And we find it ironic that the same two commissioners (Hood and Stan) the WDN has launched this guerrilla attack on were the very two who opposed all the district-elected school board over-spending on the bond projects.

    We are tempted to enumerate why the Limited Voting system is more effective in meeting the racial diversity requirements of the Voting Rights Act, because it is here that the WDN shows their greatest ignorance of the reality of the electoral options available to the County, but our editorial team has concluded that actually they know that eliminating the Limited Voting system would be retrogressive and would thus not be approved. And if approved, would diminish minority representation. We suspect that is precisely what they want, in addition to getting rid of conservatives on the County Commission.

    We think this push is motivated by spite. Spite and frustration that the WDN and a group of self-appointed aristocrats within Washington can't control Hood and Stan. The Beaufort Observer gets the same attacks when we do not knuckle under to the Elite Oligopoly.

    What has really happened in Beaufort County in the last few years is that the small clique that enjoyed calling the shots for the entire county has not been able to do so without their hand being called because conservatives have been able to have a seat at the table. That is what the WDN is really complaining about.

    Those who would rather have seats on the county commission represent districts know that dilutes the conservative vote when racial polarization is factored in. It is the same reasoning that causes liberals to oppose the electoral college in electing the president and vice-president. We think it is the typical liberal tactic: If you can't go head up on ideas, then suppress the conservatives any other way you can.

    But the simple fact is that the WDN knows that Stan and Hood live in the same precinct so they know a district system would most likely pit them against each other.

    And if you look at the straight ticket party voting in the 2010 election you see very clearly that a district system would benefit the Democrats.

    Moreover, the idea of representation being based on townships is patently absurd. Townships are not equal in population and would be illegal under the one-person, one-vote standard. And David Moore knows this. So why would he advocate for an illegal system? Maybe the WDN misquoted him.

    But unless the Voting Rights Act (at least Section 5) is thrown out, Limited Voting is here to stay. You simply can't draw a district system without potentially illegal gerrymandering without retrogression in racial diversity.

    The WDN says in their lead article: "Despite the fact much of the local public seems to favor converting to districts..." Either they again did not do their homework or are simply exposing their bias. The real fact of the matter is this: The candidate that came in first in the last election stood up for the current system as being the most viable, all realities considered. The second highest vote getter unequivocally supported Limited Voting. The three candidates who ran on a platform of changing the Limited Voting system lost and the one that made it the biggest campaign issue came in dead last.

    We might suggest to the WDN and Al Klemm that the people have indeed spoken and what they have said is that Limited Voting is not the biggest problem the commissioners should be working on. Like, maybe, cutting taxes.

    Lest we forget, this WDN that claims to know "...the fact much of the local public seems to favor converting to districts..." is the very same WDN that ran a survey and pronounced that based on less than 150 people, "UHS is the choice of the public" to take over the hospital. Yep, that's correct. They divine the public's position based on less than 150 people. We'd suggest that smacks of grasping at straws. Straw men in fact.

    If the WDN feels like the only way they can steamroll Hood and Stan on the hospital issue is to change the electoral system we would suggest that a more productive use of their editorial prowess would be to stipulate precisely the negotiating points upon which Hood and Stan have been proven to be incorrect. At least they did not take a position before they knew what the proposals will be.