Wednesday, December 01, 2004

Carteret Countians Will Get to Vote Again

The State Board of Elections decided yesterday that the 4,400 voters in Carteret County whose votes were lost, plus all the registered voters in Carteret who did not bother to turn out on election day Nov. 2nd, will get another chance to go back to the polls on January 11th to vote again in the race for Commissioner of Agriculture. That decision affects about 24,000 total Carteret voters. A somewhat novel, if not outright strange, decision. Democrat Britt Cobb, who is behind by about 2,000 votes in statewide tallies, wanted a new state-wide vote in the Commissioner of Agriculture race. Cobb's lawyer suggested that Unilect, the company that makes the voting machines that ditched the 4,400 votes in Carteret, should pay for a new state-wide election. Republican Steve Troxler wanted just the 4,400 lost voters in Carteret to revote. So nobody is particularly happy with this decision.

The State BOE also declared June Atkinson winner of the Superintendent of Public Instruction race over Bill Fletcher, which did not make Mr. Fletcher happy. He wanted some 10,000 provisional ballots statewide thrown out that ended up counting. Fletcher is refusing to concede and is likely going to court against the BOE's decision.

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