Evidence That Parts of the NC DemsParty Are Comatose

Get this: Democratic members of county boards of election in some 32 counties have joined with their Republican majorities in requesting an exemption from the State BOE to have fewer Early Voting hours during the May primaries, hours that were mandated by the monster voting law (Voter I.D., etc.) enacted by the Republican majority.

The quirk in the law: As Pat McCrory so memorably said, Early Voting has been "compacted." Though the number of days of Early Voting has been reduced from 17 to 10, the total number of hours that polls were open during Early Voting in 2012 must be duplicated in the shortened Early Voting period of 2014, unless an individual county board of elections unanimously requests an exemption from the rule. Got that?

Apparently, when the law was originally passed and in order to get some Democratic support, Republican bosses had to add that particular provision (to maintain the same number of total hours while reducing the total number of days). The rationale used to sell the law to Democrats was that county election boards would henceforth be forced to extend Early Voting hours to 8 or 9 p.m., for example, and add more sites to help more people find time to vote.

Unless an individual county board of elections unanimously requests an exemption from the rule.

And that's exactly what 32 NC counties have done (complete list below). Which means that in 32 NC counties, the Democratic member of those boards of elections saw no problem whatsoever in reducing Early Voting even more than the cutting off of a full week of ballot access. Republican majorities on those boards proposed seeking the exemption, and Democratic members, in an excess of wanting to be nice or just plain stupid, went along with the further squeezing of North Carolina democracy into a box that will fit very neatly on Art Pope's desk.

We can understand the presence of some counties on this list, where no viable Democratic Party even exists, but ... Buncombe?!?

Alleghany

Bladen

Brunswick

Buncombe

Caldwell

Camden

Cherokee

Chowan

Clay

Craven

Currituck

Duplin

Graham

Granville

Greene

Henderson

Martin

McDowell

Mitchell

Onslow

Pamlico

Pasquotank

Perquimans

Sampson

Stokes

Surry

Tyrrell

Warren

Washington

Wilkes

Yadkin

Yancey

Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/2014/02/28/3661081/nc-counties-allowed-to-reduce.html#storylink=cpy