Tuesday, March 01, 2005

Electoral Voodoo

The N&O is headlining today the coming clash between N.C.'s Supremes and the state legislature: the N.C. Supreme Court throws out over 11,000 provisional ballots in a bizarre ruling ... and the Democrats in the State House & Senate are busily passing a law this week that says those ballots have to be counted.

Meanwhile, the Wake Superior Court appears at the moment to be bound by the Supreme Court's decision and is holding court tomorrow to decide exactly how to disfranchise those 11,000. May we suggest a black cauldron and eye of newt as court accessories?

Bill Fletcher, the frustrated Republican candidate for State Superintendent of Public Instruction, who launched all this mess in his petition to the Supreme Court, "has proposed a way to delete votes from each candidate when the illegal ballots cannot be identified. The board would split the unidentifiable ballots proportionately between the candidates based on the choices of the county's other out-of-precinct voters." Did you follow that? No, neither did we. And from what we can tell, neither did the reporter for the N&O. Apparently, eye of newt is already being invoked.

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