No controversy expected from Guilford County Board of Elections

Local Republican-controlled election boards across North Carolina — especially in Elizabeth City, Watauga County and even right in Forsyth County — are being watched closely due to attempts to alter or limit access to voting. But in Guilford County, there's no gawking press or outraged public, just a quiet, calm meeting in a large room at the old county courthouse. As the three-member board met last week, with lone Democrat Dot Kearns participating on speakerphone, the biggest "controversy" was whether to reappoint a long-serving Democratic chief precinct judge who said he was unsure he wanted to continue in the position.

[Republican board members Don Wendelken and Kathryn Lindley voted not to reappoint him but to continue discussing the issue with him in case he decided to keep serving. Kearns said he should be appointed and could choose to step down instead.]

L to R: Don Wendelken, who ran unsuccessfully for county commissioner last year, Board Chair Kathryn Lindley and Elections Director Charlie Collicutt last week.

As the board aimed to appoint judges and chief judges for precincts throughout the county, the main problem arose from previous appointees declining to serve and both the local Republican and Democratic parties failing to provide a sufficient list of names to fill all of the vacancies. In several instances at the board's meeting last week, the three members elected to take no action. 

We'll continue to watch the Forsyth and Guilford County Election Boards, but at least for now, all's quiet on the eastern front (of our coverage area, that is).

UNCG student given misinformation at early voting

When UNCG student Laura Stanley went to the early voting site at the Weatherspoon Art Museum a few weeks before the election, she wasn’t sure if she needed to bring anything. At age 20, it was her first time voting, though she had registered several months prior.

As she walked up to the polling place wearing an Obama sticker, Stanley said she approached a man holding a Romney sign and asked him what she needed to vote. Without asking her any questions  —like if she was already registered — he told her she would need ID and two pieces of mail such as a bill to prove her residency. He asked her who she was voting for and she answered with “Obama,” and he reiterated that she would need ID and two pieces of mail, Stanley said.

Trusting his advice, Stanley turned around and left, not realizing until Sunday night that the information was entirely false after her mother inquired about whether she had voted and did a little digging.

It is not clear whether the man and the woman he was with outside the Weatherspoon were with the Guilford County Republican Party and the affiliated Victory campaign, but Guilford County GOP chair Al Bouldin said the party has had someone stationed at the Weatherspoon for the majority of early voting. Stanley said she overheard the woman, who wore a “Conservatives for America” hat, talking on the phone about someone coming to take over the next shift.

When asked about the advice Stanley received, Bouldin said it was true if she hadn’t voted before, even if she was already registered. Trying to explain the different requirements for first-time registrants or people in Stanley’s shoes, Bouldin falsely stated what was required each time but said he delegated those responsibilities out and added that Guilford County GOP Vice Chair Mindy Greenwood handled it for the party.

“We don’t teach them to give advice on the voting process or rules or anything like that,” Greenwood said after Bouldin passed her the phone. “They don’t have that level of training. We just tell them to be nice and courteous and to stay where they’re supposed to be and that’s sort of the only training that they get.”

Greenwood said questions about registration are usually referred to her, Bouldin, someone else in party leadership or directly to the board of elections.

“We’re not here to be experts on that,” she said, adding that people like the man Stanley encountered were just supposed to be knowledgeable on the candidates. “We’re not the board of elections so we don’t try to be. We don’t train them to know about voting, and the process and the rules with the board of elections.”

Charlie Collicutt, the deputy director with the Guilford County Board of Elections, said that while early voting registration does have a higher identification threshold, no voters are ever required to provide ID and two pieces of mail. People who are already registered and haven’t voted yet are almost never required to provide identification as Bouldin claimed, Collicutt said, except when a previously provided social security number or driver’s license number doesn’t match.

Out of 360,000 registered voters in the county, 8,000 — or 2 percent — have had to show ID in such a circumstance, he said. Students can register with a student photo ID along with a document from the school showing their name and current address, Collicutt said. While it may be easy to get confused, he said, the Romney supporter provided false information and shouldn’t have answered Stanley’s question in the first place.

“He had no knowledge of her registration status,” Collicutt said. “Even if she was a same day registrant, he’s still wrong. He is not the appropriate person to answer that question. The voters are also wading into dangerous waters when they go and ask advice from people who aren’t associated with the board of elections.”

Collicutt added that he has worked well with Bouldin and that he planned to contact Bouldin regarding the information, saying that the requirements were “complex” and that “there’s so much nuance.”

In the end, Stanley realized the error with some assistance, and said she planned to vote on Election Day. While she unknowingly passed the false information along to a friend, she said he wasn’t deterred because unlike her, he did have a document to prove his address — even though she didn’t need one. 

Triadpolitics.info

Now that filing for the 2010 elections have officially closed, get caught up at YES! Weekly's campaign site, triadpolitics.info, which will be updated continually throughout the poltical season.

Minimum wage raise supporters turn in signatures, but did they fall short?

Supporters of a citizen initiative to establish a citywide minimum wage within Greensboro’s municipal boundaries of $9.36 per hour handed over a bin containing more than 6,000 signed petitions to City Clerk Juanita Cooper on Monday. The current state minimum wage is $6.15 per hour.

Should the city clerk find the petitions sufficient, the measure would automatically go before the city council for consideration. And if a majority of council were to reject the proposed ordinance — which is likely — the proposal goes before the voters. Jim Boyett, co-chair of the Greensboro Minimum Wage Committee, said that might happen in either the primary or general elections next year.

Questions arose yesterday about whether supporters of the initiative had gathered a sufficient number of signatures. The Greensboro charter states that any initiative petition must be signed by qualified voters of a number equal to 25 percent of voters in the preceding municipal election. The group collected 6,412 signatures, according to committee member Fahiym Hanna. That number exceeds 25 percent of the qualified voters in the 2005 election — 19,294 — but falls short of 25 percent of the 2007 total — 33,752 — when an open mayoral seat drove a surge in turnout.

Supporters of the minimum wage initiative said they understood that the 2005 campaign statistics were operative.

“When the committee went to the election board for the procedure, we learned that there’s a one-year period to collect signatures,” said Ed Whitfield, a member of the committee. “The number of signatures is supposed to be 25 percent of those who voted in the last election. The only good-faith way we could figure out what that means is to refer to the 2005 election, since we didn’t know how many people would vote in 2007. We had a one-year time period starting Dec. 1, 2006 that is stamped on the front page that we handed in to the city clerk.” (Whitfield added that the committee was told by someone in the city manager’s office that since Dec. 1, 2007 fell on a Saturday they could turn over the petitions the following Monday.)

Charlie Collicutt, deputy director of the Guilford County Board of Elections, said he provided no assurance to the committee that its computation would be validated.

“I have spoken to these people in the past and all I have been doing is providing them statistics,” he said. “We have not authorized a certain set of numbers that they have to use because I am not an expert on the city charter, and we don’t have jurisdiction to make that decision.”

He added, “I honestly have no idea what numbers they’re supposed to use. From my rudimentary understanding of the city charter, it says 'the last election,' but I’m not an expert.”

The city clerk has five days to determine the sufficiency of the petitions and to forward them to the board of elections to validate that the signatures correspond to qualified voters.

Supporters of the initiative described raising the minimum wage as a “moral imperative.”

“We feel on the Minimum Wage Committee that companies and business that come into our cities to abuse workers, this has to stop,” said committee co-chair Marilyn Baird. “And what we’re saying here is that they can afford it. Nine thirty-six is what the spending power of the minimum wage was in 1968 when the minimum wage was a dollar and ninety cents.”

Whitfield argued that raising the minimum wage was a matter of both fairness and good economics.

“Productivity of workers has increased,” he said. “Profits have increased. Executive compensation has increased. The only thing that hasn’t increased is the wages of workers. We really think this is an important part of our quality of life.”

He added: “There are all kinds of predictions of doom and gloom economically, but in cities where this has been done like San Francisco and Santa Fe, their economies have improved.”

Supporters said they garnered signatures from three city council representatives (all African American), and County Commission Chairman Paul Gibson. District 2 Councilwoman Goldie Wells was on hand to express her support.



Baird said the petitioners ran into Wells in the parking lot of the Food Lion grocery at the intersection of East Market and English streets in the summer. “She agreed to sign it immediately,” Baird said. “We didn’t have to talk to her a lot, bending her arm and knocking her groceries out of her hands.”

Four council members have gone on record as being opposed to raising the minimum wage in Greensboro: Robbie Perkins, Zack Matheny, Mike Barber and Trudy Wade. Two, Sandra Anderson Groat and Mary Rakestraw, said in a recent candidate’s survey that they remained undecided.