Jackson Co. Board of Elections Member Blows the Whistle on Republican Collusion To Squelch the Youth Vote

 

Dave Boliek

 

 

We've known since the bosses in the General Assembly put Republican Auditor Dave Boliek in charge of the State Board of Elections that the GOP had drawn a cross-hatch on the youth vote. That became crystal clear when Boliek appointed Republican operative Dallas Woodhouse to "coordinate" voting plans with county parties. What Woodhouse apparently did was issue "kill" orders for university early voting sites in several county BOEs, one of which was Jackson County, home to Western Carolina University. WCU had enjoyed an early voting site on its campus since 2016. 

We don't know how Woodhouse may have delivered the message about squelching the youth vote, but the Republican majority in Jackson Co. got the message for the primary. The board voted 3-2 along partisan lines to deny WCU its usual site, and because the vote was not unanimous -- as required by state law -- the primary early voting plan had to go to the State Board of Elections with its 3-2 Republican majority. The Republicans on the SBOE naturally found it quite easy to sanction the closing of the site at WCU.

That was the primary. Now early voting plans for the General Elections are once again issues for county BOEs. Two of the three Republican members in Jackson let it be known that they supported returning early voting to the WCU campus for this fall. Those two members were promptly summoned to a secret dressing-down by the Jackson County Republican Executive Committee, which according to the member who blew the whistle, threatened the two men with expulsion from the board:

“When we made it clear what we were going to vote, we were asked to come before the Executive Committee of the Republican Party” to justify it, the whistleblower told an open meeting of the Jackson BOE Monday. “And we presented them evidence, we presented them numbers, we presented them everything,” the whistle-blower said. “And all I heard was, ‘Well, we just don’t want it on campus. We just don’t want it on campus.’ ”

One of those two renegade Republican members promptly resigned from the board in April, leaving a 2-2 split of voting members. Only one remaining Republican, the Chair of the Board, voted against the WCU site for the Fall elections. The whistle-blower and the two Democrats voted for the WCU site. The board chair was apologetic and somewhat chagrined. According to reporting by NCNewsline, he admitted during Monday's meeting that he had been pressured "from above" and that he was sorry to be the one vote that kept the plan from being unanimous. The final decision will now fall again to the SBOE, and we've seen this movie before. 

What they're doing to suppress the youth vote in the upcoming election is as plain as the large partisan nose on Dave Boliek's fat face.

The Man Who Shut Down Early Voting at Western Carolina

 

Bill Thompson, presiding

 

 

Bill Thompson, the new Republican chair of the Jackson County Board of Elections, has managed to establish an early reputation as a nasty piece of work. But isn't that the way Phil Berger and Tim Moore intended election administration to go in North Carolina? They changed the law, put themselves in charge of elections, and just naturally attracted the meanest and most partisan people to make things as difficult as possible.

As chair of the Jackson BOE, it was Thompson who led the nasty move of killing an early voting site at Western Carolina University. “ By law, we could have just one site in Jackson County,” Thompson warned, ignoring evidence that the WCU early voting site was the most used in the county. “One site is required for every 30,000 voters. We've got four, that's plenty.”

Two complaints were lodged with the NC State BOE against Bill Thompson for his conduct in a Cullowee precinct polling place during the March primary. A voter, seconded by two other witnesses, and an actual poll worker both filed complaints on the second day of early voting, saying Thompson came into the polling site talking trash about Muslims and saying that both Germany and France were ruined now because of the Muslim invasion, and that he especially didn't trust Germans. The poll worker who heard all this was born in Germany and he summed up the grief  brief against Bill Thompson, that "he exposed deep and unfounded disgust against Muslims and their faith as well as any non-European culture.”

Bill Thompson's not the first bigot to chair a board of elections, but still....

The NC BOE on March 25th (last Wednesday) held an initial review to determine whether the complaints against Thompson "presented sufficient evidence of misconduct or a violation of election-related duties." The board voted 4-1 that the threshold had not been met. One Democrat voted with the Republican majority, though she lectured Thompson: "We're cautioned not to bring politics into the polling place, and discussions of politics. At least one of those instances cited in the complaints is arguably a political commentary, or brings in issues that really have no place in a polling place.” But she agreed to let him off the hook.

Republican SBOE member Stacy "Four" Eggers did give Thompson a highly decorous, because indirect dressing-down:

"Mr. Chairman, I think it is worth cautioning the chair [Thompson] as to his discussions, choice of words and what he chooses to discuss at the polling place. I know that Miss [Angela] Hawkins [another Jackson Co. board member] and I both have spent a lot of time in county precincts, and generally the discussion is limited to the weather, or perhaps your favorite sports team or something innocuous like that.

“Although the comments were not appropriate for the discussion in the area, they still, in my mind, don't show a violation of Chapter 163.” 

I suspect this may not be the last dressing-down that Bill Thompson will be needing.

 

Students Sue for Restoration of Campus Polling Sites

 

Democracy Docket:

A group of North Carolina students sued Republican state officials Tuesday to restore early voting sites on three college campuses across the state, including at the United States’ largest historically Black college.

The lawsuit comes just over two weeks after the North Carolina State Board of Elections (NCSBE) rejected the early voting sites in a 3-2 vote along party lines....

In the lawsuit [brought by the Elias Law Group] the students allege that the board’s removal of voting sites at Western Carolina University (WCU), the University of North Carolina–Greensboro (UNC-G), and North Carolina A&T State University (NC A&T), the largest HBCU in the country, violated the U.S. Constitution in multiple ways.

They argue that the removal unduly burdens the right to vote in violation of the First and Fourteenth Amendments by forcing students, who often do not have reliable transportation, to travel long distances off campus in order to cast their ballot....

The elimination of on-campus sites violates the 26th Amendment by targeting student voters, particularly young Black voters, the lawsuit argues.

Taken together, the three campuses serve over 40,000 students, including thousands of Black students. NC A&T has a current enrollment of over 15,000 students.

“For many of these students, voting in college is their first opportunity to exercise the franchise — a milestone in their civic engagement and a connection to the generations of Black North Carolinians who fought for the right to vote,” the lawsuit reads.

The students, who also sued the Jackson County Board of Elections and many of its members, are seeking a court order to block the elimination of the on-campus early voting sites for the upcoming 2026 primary.

Since Republicans took control of the NCSBE in May, it has taken several steps to restrict voting in the state.

I'm Counting on You, Gen-Z

The holy hell the student journalists at the Daily Tar Heel have been raising over the so-called "Silent Sam settlement" is just one more indication that the Baby Boomer Generation in North Carolina has become as moldy and full of worm holes as hundred-year-old Stilton and that our young people are our last best hope for saving us from backsliding into Lost Cause nostalgia. Among other things.

[NOTE: I'm not a Boomer, dammit! I'm older than that, born near the end of the Silent Generation's reign of indifference and smug complacency. I have my own demons.]

In case you don't follow the news out of Orange County, the UNC Board of Governors -- every last one of them a Republican Boomer appointed by the Republican bosses in the General Assembly -- did a secret deal with a white supremacist neo-Confederate group to accept $2.6 million to take the Silent Sam statue off the university's hands.

The Gen-Z journalists at the Daily Tar Heel began looking into that deal and completely scooped all the regular news outlets. What the reporters uncovered is plenty problematic, smelly enough that the Daily Tar Heel is also suing the Board of Governors for violating the state's open meetings law while arriving at their deal with the Sons of Confederate Veterans.

The 18-to-20 year olds now populating our university campuses were born when I was reaching retirement age, and the ones I've known and worked with -- several, and more all the time, because Gen-Z is nothing if it's not politically motivated to pay attention and do something -- give me inordinate hope. They say they are motivated by fear, and I can appreciate that. They've been watching the mess the Boomers created, and they can recognize a tipping point even if their elders can't.

I hear just this morning that more university campuses in this state will have on-campus polling stations this year, just like AppState fought so hard to preserve. That gladdens my heart. Just like the spectacle of the Daily Tar Heel suing the Board of Governors over violating the open meetings law brightens my gloomy day.

Fired Up and Ready to Go v. Voter Suppression Laws

A new polling statistic: The percentage of both independents and younger voters who are claiming they’re absolutely certain to vote is up from October 2014:

➼ Independents determined to vote -- up from 59 percent in 2014 to 72 percent now

➼ Younger voters under 40 determined to vote -- up from 42 percent in 2014 to 67 percent now

One of the groups most in the crosshairs of North Carolina voter suppression = young voters, especially college kids at liberal universities. Those kids will be permanently sidelined from the ballot if a certain NC constitutional amendment passes, the one mandating a photo ID to vote -- but not just any photo ID, but rather the one the NC General Assembly decides is the Golden Ticket (which college students are guaranteed not to possess). I dunno. Perhaps the combination of such obvious attempts to discourage the youth vote (the Watauga County case is a prime, though not the only, example) and the proposed constitutional amendment -- "Don't Even Think About Voting in North Carolina Without the Passport We Mandate" -- perhaps those blatant attempts to suppress the vote has had the opposite effect. Because the young people I know are chomping at the bit.

Determination is the mother of results.

Last night, I learned about what's going on in North Dakota with native American voters, and I have to conclude that North Carolina maybe isn't the worst state any more for voter suppression. The North Dakota legislature has disenfranchised the native Americans in Sioux and Rolette counties by banning voter registrations with no street addresses, where most native American voters have PO box addresses, not street addresses, because most people get their mail from a p.o. and many roads aren't even named. Why did they do that? Because Democratic Senator Heidi Heitkamp won her seat by only 3,000 votes in 2012, votes which came from Sioux and Rolette counties, and the North Dakota Republicans in charge of the laws and interested in unseating Heitkamp intend to stop Indians from voting Democratic.

Or take Georgia, which has entrusted its fair voting system to the Republican secretary of state (Brian Kemp) who is also running for governor against a black woman Democrat (Stacey Abrams), so guess whose voter registrations have been and are being systematically nullified by the Secretary of State's office. No, guess.

The pickle their politics have put them in! The people don't like their policies, so they can't win any other way except keeping people away from the ballot. And because the public has often been ignorant or oblivious, they've gotten away with it. Have to hope -- and some of the polling today encourages the hope -- that more people are woke.

ADDENDUM
Republican elected officials are a tad touchy being asked about voter suppression, especially US Senator from Georgia David Perdue, who snatched a cell phone out of a student's hand to avoid being photographed answering the question, "Why have you endorsed a man for governor who's suppressing the vote?"

Door-Knocking: The Rarest and the Bestest

Read a statistic from the Pennsylvania State Department: Voters in the Keystone State who are 34 and younger now outnumber those 65 and older. 

Happening also in other states besides Pennsylvania. According to Dan Levin, Arizona, New York, Florida, and Virginia "have also seen sharp increases" in voter registration among the under-34 demographic. High time and overdue. 

What about North Carolina?

Those kinds of specific demographic numbers haven't immediately presented themselves. (This was one relevant statistic two years ago, in September 2016: "Only 67% of voting-eligible Millennials and 73% of Gen Xers were active, registered voters, compared to 81% of Boomers and 82% of Silent/Greatest voting-eligibles" -- Dr. Michael Bitzer.) But I don't find statistics for total numbers of Millennials and (especially) the rising number of Gen Zers (those born after 1998), as a percentage of total registration. What's the situation going to be in September 2018? Is that percentage of Millennials and Gen Zers rising?

Voter canvass, Saturday, August 25

I think it is, but I have only anecdotal evidence. I follow many Twitter accounts that show young activists campaigning, canvassing neighborhoods, registering voters, talking knowledgeably about issues that grab them. Break the Majority, an NCDP special campaign arm targeting NC House and Senate seats, launched a statewide canvass yesterday, aiming to knock 24,000 doors by 6 p.m. in targeted districts. Many or most of those canvassers are under the age of 25.

They're informed voters. They know what's been going on and not via Fox News. In fact, not really via any TV. Many -- most? -- of the Millennials I've met recently are readers, like ... reading is back, y'all! Which means, maybe, some young brains have better bullshit detectors.

NAACP Attorneys Looking at Watauga, Elizabeth City Suppression of College Student Vote

From an NAACP emailed press release this a.m.:

McCrory: Stop the Coordinated Attacks on College Student Voting

The extremists' Voter Suppression agenda was being implemented in two far-flung college counties in North Carolina even before Gov. Pat McCrory got around to reading and signing the Monster Voter Suppression bill last Monday afternoon. In Watauga and Pasquotank counties, the 2-1 Voter Suppressionist caucus were actively trying to strip students of their voting rights.

Out west in Watauga where Appalachian State students are becoming more politically active, the Suppressionist Caucus of the County Board of Election met at 9 o'clock Monday morning to try to strip the early voting site from the campus of Appalachian State in Boone.

"It was such an obvious backlash against the students' increasing political power in local as well as state and national elections, we immediately dispatched our District Director and our Campus Field Secretary for Western campuses to Watauga to investigate," said Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II, NC NAACP President.

In the northeast corner of the state, the Suppressionist Caucus on the Pasquotank County Board of Elections, in lockstep with the Watauga Suppressionists, began targeting the growing voting potential of the predominantly African American student body at Elizabeth State University.

"We will be investigating the Pasquotank Board of Elections actions carefully, including a site visit early next week," said Dr. Barber. "We will conduct a Moral Monday to in Manteo," he said, "and then we will be meeting with our Pasquotank Branch leaders to examine the best means to resist the extremists' attacks."

"Why would anyone want to keep our young people from getting engaged in the American democracy we hold so dear? Why would anyone be afraid of a group of young people voting in a local election this fall?" Dr. Barber asked." I can only think of one reason." ...

Dickishness Surfacing in Other NC County Boards of Elections

Watauga County is not alone in an outbreak of suppressive activity by local boards of elections, all of them now dominated by people who really don't think anyone but conservatives should be allowed to participate in government.

Sharon McClosky shared an article from the Elizabeth City Daily Advance about a student at Elizabeth City State University who wanted to run for a seat on the local city council. The two Republicans on the Pasquotank County Board of Elections decided that he was ineligible because he wasn't a "permanent" resident.

Come again? That is not a constitutional requirement for either voting or for seeking public office. "Permanent" resident has no definition under the law. Only "resident for 30 days" has any force of law in North Carolina. I could move to Pasquotank County tomorrow, Dear Hearts (but don't hold your breath), register to vote after 30 days and file to run for office on that same day, and then, because I didn't really like Pasquotank County, I could move away right after I voted in the next election. I was not, under the phony definition of the Pasquotank Board of Elections, a "permanent resident," but I was sure as shit a "resident" eligible for voting and eligible to run for office if I can pay the filing fee.

But why argue with these dictatorial, ass-brained Republicans now populating every board of elections in the state? The argument was already made and won before the U.S. Supreme Court in Symm v. U.S. (1979). Google it. And some lawyer, or even that Elizabeth City State University student himself, should file a lawsuit, because that kid's rights have been violated.

In the worst way.

The Republican hatred for -- and palpable fear of -- the young people in their midst is going to destroy them eventually. Just possibly not soon enough.

GOP Thinks the Time's Right to Suppress the Youth Vote

Timely article is today's WashPost that highlights North Carolina's proposed voter ID law, in particular for the way it (and similar laws proposed in New Hampshire and other states) will disproportionately disenfranchise college students from voting where they're going to school.

For the record, the right of college students to vote wherever they're attending college was established by the Supreme Court in 1979 in Symm v. U.S.

But it's a perennial itch certain Powers That Be can't help scratching, and they think they've got the right "scratcher" in voter ID laws that demand the correct and current local address on the ID.

If there was ever any doubt of why college students are always targeted by voter suppression laws, the Republican Speaker of the New Hampshire state House had a candid and unguarded moment: "Voting as a liberal. That's what kids do."

Well, true, they haven't shown much affection for some Republican death-wishes, like treating gay people as not-quite-full citizens and treating pregnant women like breeding stock. But they are, legally and ethically, full members of the Commonweal after they reach the age of 18.

The movement to disenfranchise them because they carry photo IDs without local addresses (driver's licenses from other counties or other states or college IDs), will eventually bite the Republicans in their posteriors. "There's no doubt that this [New Hampshire] bill would help Republican causes," said Richard Sunderland III, head of the College Republicans at Dartmouth College. But, he added, "this doesn't help if the Republican Party wants to try to win over people in the 18-to-24 age range."

Tweet Charity

Kevin Bondelli, who blogs on the youth vote at KevinBondelli.com, cross-posted on BlueNC yesterday a tweet he noticed on the Western NC GOP twitter page:

So, this is why the youth vote went to Obama ... because they're a bunch of easily led, useful idiots. Makes sense. http://bit.ly/b6Jm

Ah yes, contempt of the young springs perennial in many Republican circles, particularly in western North Carolina where there's a major university.

Disenfranchising Students in Virginia

Some North Carolina wag in the 19th century, familiar with the sometimes inherent snobbery of both Virginia and South Carolina, referred to our state as "a vale of humility between two mountains of conceit."

In Virginia's case, 134 county voter registrars know exactly what sort of people should be allowed to vote. College students very often do not pass the test. In a state with 161 colleges and 483,159 students, the conceit of the registrars is patently unconstitutional.

We had already heard about the Montgomery County registrar, Randall Wertz, who issued official warnings to Virginia Tech students in Blacksburg that, by registering, "you have declared your independence from your parents and can no longer be claimed as a dependent on their income tax filings .... If you have a scholarship attached to your former residence, you could lose this funding." The first statement is just an outright lie: the right to vote has absolutely nothing to do with being a dependent on your parents' IRS forms, and the second statement seems to give away its own falsity with that strategically placed verb "could." You could also learn to fly off the roof of your dorm.

Worse is Juanita Pitchford, the registrar for Fredericksburg, where the University of Mary Washington is located. Pitchford, the most blueblood of Virginia registrars, requires that all students interview with her before registering, "so she can decide on a case-by-case basis whether they can vote."

Are you kidding me? No, evidently not. Reminds us of the situation in Boone 40 years ago, when virtually the only bank writing mortgages for houses required an interview with a bank officer whose first question probed which church you were a member of.

The Supreme Court in 1979 settled the issue of student registration and voting rights. A college student may register and vote where he/she is in school, even if the place of residence is a dorm with Green Day blasting out of every room.

Students in North Carolina, thank God, are not being harassed like students in Virginia. That will change if Pat McCrory is elected governor and the Republican Party takes over control of our 100 county boards of election. There will be little or no accommodation of students.

You betcha.

Montgomery Co., Va., Voter Registrar Tries to Keep Students From Registering

It happens somewhere in this country every election cycle ... some local voting official, alarmed that college students might actually take their voting rights seriously, issues a stern warning that IF college students register in his/her county, they're be subjected to waterboarding or something worse.

The Montgomery County registrar, seeing a huge uptick in registration by Virginia Tech students, issued a press release threatening students that they might no longer be claimed as dependents on their parents' tax returns -- "a statement the Internal Revenue Service says is incorrect" -- or that they could lose scholarships or coverage under their parents' car and health insurance, another whopper.

Let's get this straight: a 1979 Supreme Court decision determined that college students can register and vote wherever they're going to school. End of story.

There are no dire consequences to choosing to exercise this right.

Fodder for John McCain's Military Draft

The Young Voters Index found that in North Carolina 200,000 young citizens between the ages of 18 and 25 still haven't registered to vote. That amounts to 23 percent of that age group ... unregistered, unengaged, too cool for school.

Prophets Are Seldom Believed in Their Own Land

Nino Saviano, a North Carolina-based Republican political strategist, has a column in today's Asheville Citizen-Times with a warning headline: "GOP had better pay more attention to young voters." (Hat-tip: The Political Junkies)

Saviano is reading the right (that is, the left) tea-leaves ... that young voters are going to turn out in large numbers for Obama and, given the dismal baggage the label "Republican" carries with it, there's a very good chance that those young voters are going to vote straight Democratic tickets.

Writes Saviano,

With Obama as the Democratic nominee and [Ron] Paul out of the race, the youth vote in the November general election may be the most important group vote for the Tar Heel State. While no youth polls exist specifically for North Carolina, nationally Obama claims more than 50 percent support among the young, while McCain claims just above 35 percent.

Since 1992, split-ticket voting by some voter groups has characterized North Carolina and has led to the election of Republicans for president and U.S. senator on one hand, and a Democratic governor and state assembly on the other. In the 2004 election, voters in the 30-44 age group and self-identified suburbanites led the key split-ticket voting.

In November, the impact of a straight-party voting by the young may overshadow any traditional split-ticket voting by any other group. An unusually energizing presidential contest may result in a strong youth vote showing and young voters opting for a straight-party vote from president on downward. This may surprise many North Carolina candidates -- from congressional to statewide and legislative races, to county, city and school board races.

What he said.