Watauga Board of Elections: Give-a-Man-Enough-Rope Edition

Transparent men

Well, it is April Fool's Day after all.

Sure enough, this evening the Republican model citizens on the Watauga Board of Elections called the question on appointing former Watauga GOP Chair Matt Snyder as the elections director to replace the retiring Jane Ann Hodges. They voted 2-1 to call the question, but Chair Luke Eggers was so eager to get out of that room that he neglected to then conduct the vote on the actual appointment of Mr. Snyder. So there's that.

And this: it came out during the meeting that Chair Eggers had interviewed none -- zero -- of the almost dozen applicants for the job, including his own guy Matt Snyder. If that doesn't rise to the level of official incompetence, what would? Not to mention a blatant failure to perform even the most elementary tasks that go with being Chair of the Board of Elections. He interviewed no one. Because other men tell him what to do, what to think, where to be, and he obediently does it.

The reason is fairly obvious. He had been told by stronger and smarter men weeks ago who he would be putting into the job, so indeed ... why would he need to interview any applicant?

Minority BOE member Kathleen Campbell said it all very clearly in her remarks:

"...My fellow Board members have refused repeatedly to go forward with a search for the best-qualified person for this job. They refused in spite of the fact that this search would have cost nothing. They also never advertised the position on the County's website. Why would someone do this? There is only one reason. Because they already had chosen the person they wanted behind the scenes and were not interested in who might actually be non-partisan and qualified for the position. That's why Mr. Eggers put forward just one name, and Mr. Aceto never put forward any at all. Once another 9 people found out through the grapevine that there was a job opening, they applied for the position. Mr. Eggers has never interviewed any of these people at all -- even Mr. Snyder -- who told me last Friday that he had not heard from Mr. Eggers since he sent him a resume, right after he heard about Ms. Hodges retiring. Instead, Bill [Aceto] met with him about the job. But, in spite of never speaking to him, Luke [Eggers] had already made up his mind .... I cannot understand how this constitutes competence...."

It constitutes something, but it ain't competence.

The big laugh-out-loud moment came when Bill Aceto defended himself to Deborah Greene, who had applied for the job and who never got an interview. She said so during public comment. Mr. Aceto addressed himself to Greene, saying that her political activism had disqualified her from the job. At which point there were guffaws in the audience, some of whom apparently saw the glaring inconsistency of saying Deb Greene was too much the activist while the former Chair of the Watauga GOP, Mr. Snyder, gets off that hook scott free.

Kim Strach

What has never ceased to amaze this observer of this Board of Elections, since they took office in August of 2013, is the utter bland transparency of their every partisan move. Once again, they've plugged in their own personal neon sign for the world to see: "WE ARE PARTISAN HACKS WHO JUST APPOINTED ANOTHER PARTISAN HACK WHO'LL DO AS HE'S TOLD AND TILT FUTURE ELECTIONS OUR WAY."

If Kim Strach, Executive Director of the State Board of Elections, who has the final say on the appointment of Mr. Snyder, doesn't blush down to her designer footwear over the sheer balls of this appointment, then she too in supremely incompetent in her job.