Members of the County Board of Elections and the Director of Elections frequently receive questions about election law and administration. Usually the questions come from citizens active in their own political party, who have a greater than average interest in the details. Sometimes the questions come from citizens who are certain they already know the right answer.
Election law is complex. From time to time, changes are made by statute or by regulation. Sometimes changes are made in the details of computer programs that assist in administering the elections process. Sometimes changes result from court cases.
To help county elections officials keep up with changes, the State Board of Elections conducts training, usually two or three times a year. In addition, the State Board publishes training presentations on its Election Resources web site.
Anyone having an interest in following these details can access the training materials at: The Election Resource Center home page: http://www.app.sboe.state.nc.us/erc/ERCHomePage.html
Click on : 2012 Annual Training For County Officials - August 14 and 15. This will take you to a list of all the lectures given during that training and printable versions of the training: http://www.app.sboe.state.nc.us/erc/Documents/Conferences/ At the bottom of that page is a link to archives of prior training material: http://www.app.sboe.state.nc.us/erc/Documents/Conferences/~Archives/ That page allows you to access material going back to 2005.
Explore and enjoy.
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
Tuesday, October 23, 2012
Early Voting: Day Six
In Pamlico County, 335 voters cast early ballots today in the heaviest turnout to date. The county board of elections also reviewed and accepted 26 mail-in absentee votes. Total votes cast so far: 1600. Eleven more days of early voting and election day still remain for voters to cast their ballots.
Seventy Years Ago: El Alamein, Stalingrad, Guadalcanal, Norfolk
October 23, 1942: North Africa. General Montgomery's 8th Army attacks Germans at El-Alamein. The attack begins with a 1000-gun barrage. After 20 minutes, 30 Corps
sends four of its infantry divisions forward into the German minefields
on a six mile front. The 8th Australian and 51st Highland Divisions
attack toward "Kidney Ridge" while slightly to the south, the New
Zealand Division supported by 1st South African Division strike toward
the Miteirya Ridge.
Stalingrad: German attacks in the factory district. Heavy fighting. Soviet forces pushed out of 2/3 of the Red October Factory, which is still building T-34 tanks.
Guadalcanal: Japanese forces attempt to cross the Matanikau River. Thrown back with heavy losses.
Convoy US Army forces under command of General George S. Patton, underway from Hampton Roads, Virginia. Destination: North African coast in Morocco.
Stalingrad: German attacks in the factory district. Heavy fighting. Soviet forces pushed out of 2/3 of the Red October Factory, which is still building T-34 tanks.
Guadalcanal: Japanese forces attempt to cross the Matanikau River. Thrown back with heavy losses.
Convoy US Army forces under command of General George S. Patton, underway from Hampton Roads, Virginia. Destination: North African coast in Morocco.
Monday, October 22, 2012
President Eisenhower's Wisdom
April 16, 1953. President Dwight David Eisenhower:
"The way chosen by the United States [after World War II] was plainly marked by a few clear precepts, which govern its conduct in world affairs.
"First: No people on earth can be held, as a people, to be an enemy, for all humanity shares the common hunger for peace and fellowship and justice.
"Second: No nation's security and well-being can be lastingly achieved in isolation but only in effective cooperation with fellow-nations.
"Third: Every nation's right to a form of government and an economic system of its own choosing is inalienable.
"Fourth: Any nation's attempt to dictate to other nations their form of government is indefensible.
"And fifth: A nation's hope of lasting peace cannot be firmly based upon any race in armaments but rather upon just relations and honest understanding with all other nations.
"In the light of these principles the citizens of the United States defined the way they proposed to follow, through the aftermath of war, toward true peace.
"This way was faithful to the spirit that inspired the United Nations: to prohibit strife, to relieve tensions, to banish fears. This way was to control and to reduce armaments. This way was to allow all nations to devote their energies and resources to the great and good tasks of healing the war's wounds, of clothing and feeding and housing the needy, of perfecting a just political life, of enjoying the fruits of their own toil....
"The worst to be feared and the best to be expected can be simply stated.
"The worst is atomic war.
"The best would be this: a life of perpetual fear and tension; a burden of arms draining the wealth and the labor of all peoples; a wasting of strength that defies the American system or the Soviet system or any system to achieve true abundance and happiness for the peoples of this earth.
"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.
"This world in arms is not spending money alone.
"It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.
"The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities.
"It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population.
"It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals.
"It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement.
"We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat.
"We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people.
"This is, I repeat, the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking.
"This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron. These plain and cruel truths define the peril and point the hope that come with this spring of 1953.
"This is one of those times in the affairs of nations when the gravest choices must be made, if there is to be a turning toward a just and lasting peace.
"It is a moment that calls upon the governments of the world to speak their intentions with simplicity and with honesty.
"It calls upon them to answer the question that stirs the hearts of all sane men: is there no other way the world may live?
"The way chosen by the United States [after World War II] was plainly marked by a few clear precepts, which govern its conduct in world affairs.
"First: No people on earth can be held, as a people, to be an enemy, for all humanity shares the common hunger for peace and fellowship and justice.
"Second: No nation's security and well-being can be lastingly achieved in isolation but only in effective cooperation with fellow-nations.
"Third: Every nation's right to a form of government and an economic system of its own choosing is inalienable.
"Fourth: Any nation's attempt to dictate to other nations their form of government is indefensible.
"And fifth: A nation's hope of lasting peace cannot be firmly based upon any race in armaments but rather upon just relations and honest understanding with all other nations.
"In the light of these principles the citizens of the United States defined the way they proposed to follow, through the aftermath of war, toward true peace.
"This way was faithful to the spirit that inspired the United Nations: to prohibit strife, to relieve tensions, to banish fears. This way was to control and to reduce armaments. This way was to allow all nations to devote their energies and resources to the great and good tasks of healing the war's wounds, of clothing and feeding and housing the needy, of perfecting a just political life, of enjoying the fruits of their own toil....
"The worst to be feared and the best to be expected can be simply stated.
"The worst is atomic war.
"The best would be this: a life of perpetual fear and tension; a burden of arms draining the wealth and the labor of all peoples; a wasting of strength that defies the American system or the Soviet system or any system to achieve true abundance and happiness for the peoples of this earth.
"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.
"This world in arms is not spending money alone.
"It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.
"The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities.
"It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population.
"It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals.
"It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement.
"We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat.
"We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people.
"This is, I repeat, the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking.
"This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron. These plain and cruel truths define the peril and point the hope that come with this spring of 1953.
"This is one of those times in the affairs of nations when the gravest choices must be made, if there is to be a turning toward a just and lasting peace.
"It is a moment that calls upon the governments of the world to speak their intentions with simplicity and with honesty.
"It calls upon them to answer the question that stirs the hearts of all sane men: is there no other way the world may live?
Early Voting: Day Five
Monday, October 21, 20012. 270 voters cast their votes today. Votes to date: 1239.
Sunday, October 21, 2012
Early Voting: Day Four
Pamlico County One-Stop early voting was open four hours today (Sunday). Eighty-five voters cast ballots, an average of 21 per hour. On Saturday, we were open eight hours and one-hundred thirteen voters cast ballots, an average of 14 per hour.
Saturday, October 20, 2012
Voting: Third Day
Early voting in Pamlico County fell off quite a bit today - only 113 votes were cast.
That's pretty consistent with past experience. Fewer voters cast ballots on Saturday than on week days. I imagine Saturday is, for most families, the day for chores and errands.
Tomorrow will be a new experience. We have never opened for early voting on a Sunday. We will be open on the 21st and 28th of October.
That's pretty consistent with past experience. Fewer voters cast ballots on Saturday than on week days. I imagine Saturday is, for most families, the day for chores and errands.
Tomorrow will be a new experience. We have never opened for early voting on a Sunday. We will be open on the 21st and 28th of October.
Seventy Years Ago: Operation Liberate North Africa
You're right. We didn't call the invasion of North Africa anything like "Operation Liberate North Africa." That's the sort of thing we do now, when military operations and their names have been taken over by Public Relations Experts.
The real name was "Operation Torch."
Guadalcanal was "Operation Watchtower."
Such names were meant to conceal, not reveal, the purpose of the operation. And certainly not to gloat.
Allied Commander of Operation Torch was Dwight David Eisenhower, Major General, United States Army. Little over a year earlier, he had been Colonel Eisenhower, in charge of the Army's Louisiana Maneuvers. A decade in the future, he would be elected President.
Presidential Scholar Richard Neustadt describes outgoing President Truman's speculation about Eisenhower's difficulties should he win the election: "He'll sit here," Truman would remark (tapping his desk for emphasis), "and he'll say, 'Do this! Do that!' And nothing will happen. Poor Ike-it won't be a bit like the Army. He'll find it very frustrating."
Neustadt thought Truman's prediction was accurate and that Eisenhower found the presidency frustrating.
I think Truman was wrong. No one knew better than Eisenhower how to persuade reluctant and egotistic subordinates to do what he wanted done.
An example of what Eisenhower had to deal with and how he proceeded is set out in a long letter from him to Army Chief of Staff George C. Marshall dated October 20, 1942. It was very far from "do this!" and "do that!" The letter can be read here.
Neustadt's essay on presidential power, from the introduction to a later edition of his book, can be read here. It is well worth taking the time to read it. Better yet, read the whole book.
The real name was "Operation Torch."
Guadalcanal was "Operation Watchtower."
Such names were meant to conceal, not reveal, the purpose of the operation. And certainly not to gloat.
Allied Commander of Operation Torch was Dwight David Eisenhower, Major General, United States Army. Little over a year earlier, he had been Colonel Eisenhower, in charge of the Army's Louisiana Maneuvers. A decade in the future, he would be elected President.
Presidential Scholar Richard Neustadt describes outgoing President Truman's speculation about Eisenhower's difficulties should he win the election: "He'll sit here," Truman would remark (tapping his desk for emphasis), "and he'll say, 'Do this! Do that!' And nothing will happen. Poor Ike-it won't be a bit like the Army. He'll find it very frustrating."
Neustadt thought Truman's prediction was accurate and that Eisenhower found the presidency frustrating.
I think Truman was wrong. No one knew better than Eisenhower how to persuade reluctant and egotistic subordinates to do what he wanted done.
An example of what Eisenhower had to deal with and how he proceeded is set out in a long letter from him to Army Chief of Staff George C. Marshall dated October 20, 1942. It was very far from "do this!" and "do that!" The letter can be read here.
Neustadt's essay on presidential power, from the introduction to a later edition of his book, can be read here. It is well worth taking the time to read it. Better yet, read the whole book.
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