Bill Aceto Once Again Says "No!" to ASU Early Voting, But the Republican Majority Cracks

Owen and Aceto

It was 2-0 on the Watauga Board of Elections just minutes ago on a motion to place an Early Voting polling site at the ASU Student Union during the municipal elections, but Chair Bill Aceto voted no. No, no, a thousand times no! The vote had to be unanimous. The majority of 2 in this case -- which included Republican member Nancy Owen -- was defeated.

Owen had just said, "We have to give a little and take a little" in agreeing to a compromise Early Voting plan with Democratic member Stella Anderson. Owen and Anderson had agreed that the ASU site could be approved for reduced days and reduced hours. While Early Voting at the BOE site downtown would go on for 12 1/2 days from 8 to 5, the ASU Student Union site was proposed for only 7 days, 10 to 5.

Anderson

But Bill Aceto, proving himself the lamest of lame ducks but as always acidly partisan, was not having it. He said he couldn't justify Early Voting at ASU for a municipal election because of projected low vote totals. Stella Anderson pointed out that in the four years Aceto has served on the BOE, he has never approved Early Voting at ASU, not even when thousands were expected there in the presidential election last fall.

Plus the Town of Boone, in requesting the ASU site, had agreed to bear all costs. "It's what the people want," Anderson pointed out, and in the interests of serving the public in a non-partisan way, we should grant the request.

No one has ever accused Bill Aceto of being non-partisan.