W T [EVERLASTING ] F

 

The Wake County Board of Elections just voted unanimously to approve an early voting plan for November that cuts out the Talley Student Union on the North Carolina State University campus, where some 47,000 students, faculty, and staff go every day. The final vote was 5-0, with both Democratic reps voting with the Republicans. This final decision followed what appeared to be a gallant Democratic attempt to save Talley as an early voting site. The two Democrats made a motion to keep Talley in the early voting plan, which pleased the overflow crowd who attended yesterday to watch the action, many of them NCSU affiliated. The Democratic motion was defeated along partisan lines 3-2. Naturally.

The next step would have depended on the Democrats sticking to their high-minded guns. They should have voted against the final version -- the Dallas Woodhouse-branded solution for discouraging the youth vote by whatever means. (In Jackson County, where Republican members of the local BOE were highminded enough to recommend a campus early voting site for Western Carolina, they got threatened by higher ups. One of the Republicans resigned in protest.) Voting against the Republican majority on the board forces by law a punt to the State Board of Elections, where, yes, another negative outcome is assured. The three Republican majority on the SBOE are in on the fix. But Democrats who don't keep fighting, even in the face of insurmountable odds -- it's not a good look.

I would like this not to be the Democratic brand in North Carolina: Caving, like DeeCee Dems. Make motions and argue to keep a voting site for young people, like you truly believe in what you're saying, like a hero for the people, and then turn around and vote with the opposition so that there cannot be a test of the decision at the State Board of Elections.

I would love to hear the reasoning behind that final unanimous vote.

No, never mind. In fact, just STFU.

 

What the State Board of Elections Did Yesterday

Stacy C "Four" Eggers, member NCSBE, voted "no"
on every early voting plan except two.
Photo Lonnie Webster

At a rare Sunday afternoon meeting, the North Carolina State Board of Elections met in Forsyth County yesterday to hear 15 contested cases for Early Voting plans. Results in every case favored more access to Early Voting, with most votes going 5-4 along partisan lines (two unanimous exceptions noted below). Grateful to Loretta Boniti for keeping us informed yesterday.

Buncombe -- gets additional early voting site in black community

Dare -- gets Sunday voting

Durham -- keeps Sunday voting

Brunswick -- gets Sunday voting

Gaston -- gets Sunday voting (unanimous)

Gates -- gets expanded hours

Henderson -- gets Sunday voting

Lincoln -- gets expanded hours (unanimous)

Orange -- gets Sunday voting

Pender -- gets 25 Saturday hours and 20 Sunday hours

Pitt -- gets 80 Saturday hours and 20 Sunday hours

Randolph -- gets 4 early voting sites and 45 Saturday hours

Robeson -- gets more Saturday voting at more sites

Rockingham -- gets more sites

Wake -- gets early voting restored on NCSU campus

Early Voting on NC State Campus About To Be in the Spotlight

In 2012, there was an Early Voting site on the campus of NC State University in Raleigh, just like at AppState. Then Gov. Squishy took office, and every Board of Election in the state came under the partisan control of Republicans. So in the 2014 elections, there was -- surprise! -- no Early Voting on the NC State campus.

In contrast, there was Early Voting on the AppState campus during the 2014 General Elections, but it took strong advocacy and a major lawsuit to accomplish it. No one was fighting for Early Voting on the NC State campus, at least not fighting in an effective way that produced results.

The passivity at NC State may be about to end. There will be a push next week in the Wake County Board of Elections to reinstate Early Voting on the Raleigh campus. Everything will depend on how strong and committed the Democratic member of that county Board of Elections is. If he votes to go along (to get along) with his Republican brethren, who'll likely deny a campus site, then the whole push sinks.

If the Democratic member votes "NO" and submits his own Early Voting plan, then the entire decision falls to the State Board of Elections, which has already been successfully sued for disenfranchising college-age voters and who might not want to be sued again.

CRACK IN THE WALL?
There is recent precedent for one of the two Republicans on the Wake Board of Elections breaking ranks and voting with the Democrat for restoring an Early Voting site in a predominantly black Raleigh neighborhood, so there's always the possibility that lightning could strike again....

Naw, won't happen. We feel sure that Republican board member was taken to the woodshed sufficiently to beat any fairness out of his synapses.

She's Got Balls

Apparently not satisfied with the heavy aroma already enwreathing her and her husband's exercise of power at N.C. State University, Mary Easley says she intends to cause a further stink by appealing her firing from that institution.

Thus keeping the whole sorry mess o' pottage bubbling on the stove.

She says she's aggrieved.

And she's got the attorney to prove it.

Catching up, which is difficult these days: The Board of Trustees at NC State University met this afternoon and fired Mary Easley from her $170,000 per annum job.

And e-mails obtained by the N&O reveal that Gov. Mike Easley had been personally involved in getting her the job back in 2005.

NC State Chancellor Is Out

Hard on the heels of the N&O's article (referenced below) about dubious pay-outs to the resigning NCSU provost, NCSU Chancellor James L. Oblinger has resigned his position this a.m. He's now admitting, in effect, that he lied to the public about some details regarding the hiring of Mary Easley, not to mention the "sweetening" the provost got with his resignation.

In other words, there's a lotta crockery getting smashed in Raleigh.

Hanging with the Easleys

The costs of cozying up to former Gov. Mike Easley and his wife Mary just keep going up. Even the costs of resigning because you were so cozy with them.

Take former North Carolina State University Provost Larry Nielsen for example, he who hired Mary Easley for a high-profile, cobbled-together position at NC State and then upped her salary by 88 percent last summer. He recently resigned when the whole deal began to get the attention of the federal prosecutor and a grand jury.

The N&O has now unearthed a deal that the NC State Chancellor made with Nielsen hours before his resignation to pay Nielsen $310,255 in extra pay above his faculty salary. And then the Chancellor set about covering that up.

Gosh, is anyone else thinking hush money?

The N&O is also digging into what exactly Mary Easley was doing for that 88 percent raise. So far ... doesn't look like much. But when you're hired because you're married to someone powerful, sometimes your main job is carting around that big name.

Mary Easley, Hanging Tough

Mary Easley let her attorney do the talking today at a press conference, though she was standing right there. Attorney Marvin Schiller said that the ex-governor's wife would not be resigning from her $800,000 contract with NCSU, which cost any number of us citizens bet-money, including moi.

Mary Easley smiled.

Attorney Schiller proceeded to read a letter of praise for Easley written by the man who hired her and who therefore resigned his position as Provost of NCSU last Friday. Angels on high were asphyxiated by the irony.

The N&O account hints broadly (because lawyer Schiller would not answer direct questions about it) that Mary Easley might be open to having her contract bought out by NCSU. Which is something short of resigning but nothing short of the family's well documented ability to get fair return on the dollar.

Those Groves of Academe

So federal subpoenas were flying like confetti in and around N.C. State University yesterday. The Chancellor will be sharing his recollections with a federal grand jury, and so will the former provost, who actually did the hiring of Mary Easley. He resigned last Friday, saying he'd done nothing wrong.

The N&O has the emerging time-line of who did what after so-and-so called him.

Another Prilosec Moment

Now the Chancellor of North Carolina State University says that it would be a good thing if Mary Easley would just go ahead and resign her $170,000 job, a position the Chancellor can't remember helping her get. It "would be in the best interest of the university."

Anyone taking bets that the position will be vacant within 24 hours?

Then what are the bets that the chancellorship itself will be vacant pretty soon after?

Erskine Bowles Wants to Block "Hate Speech"

Following the spray-painting on the NC State University campus of the n-word and the recommendation that President-Elect Obama should be shot in the head, UNC system Chancellor Erskine Bowles has appointed a commission to look into banning "hate speech" from all constituent institutions.

That's a bad idea.

If the student prank at NC State constitutes an actual threat of violence under federal law, let it be prosecuted. Actual threats, in light of this nation's recent history of political assassinations, have to be taken seriously. But to attempt to control every stupid thing that an undergraduate might say -- or spray paint -- in the heat of self-importance, we'll soon discover an inexhaustible supply of stupid things said by self-important undergraduates.

It would also be a suppression of free speech not supported by the First Amendment of the Constitution. Not a road we should be going down, when mere exposure to public opinion often renders the most effective punishment to hormonally imbalanced teenagers with an insatiable need to strut.