|
OBSERVATIONS
March 5, 2020 |
 |
 Wingate Lassiter |
More of us could have a say if all
our local offices were nonpartisan
A couple of things I didn't like about this year's Primary Election:
• We shouldn't be choosing local government officers based on any political party's recommended slate of candidates.
Not only that, but I strongly believe it's a disservice to citizens to require candidates for local offices like County Commissioner or District Court judge to run under the label of any political party.
We've already got nonpartisan election of school board members, although I was disturbed to see both political parties handing out their recommended choices at the polls on Tuesday. A flyer listing "Democratic candidates," for instance, included the names of seven of the 16 candidates on the ballot for the four contested seats.
How does a candidate in a nonpartisan election merit endorsement from either political party? The hand-outs don't give us any reason for that.
• All voters in Johnston and the other counties in the 11th Judicial District weren't able to take part in electing a new District Court judge.
This time, only those voters eligible to participate in the Republican Primary got to choose a new District Court judge because the only two women who filed for an open seat are registered Republicans.
What's party affiliation got to do with a judge's position anyway? Aren't those folks supposed to be unbiased in fulfilling their duties, without regard to any political party's agenda?
On the positive side of Tuesday's Primary, it was good to see "democracy in action" with that long list of school board candidates. That, in itself, shows heightened public interest in local government. And boy do we need that now, coming out of a period when the doings of our school board as well as county and town governing boards were neglected in our local "news desert."
Another thing I'm thankful for is Johnston County's continued use of machine-counted paper ballots that we actually mark, rather than a computer touch-screen system that lacks a paper trail.
With our system, if there's technical problem with tabulating ballots, election officials can always resort to counting our ballots by hand to make sure the numbers are valid. Even the Russians couldn't mess with that, right?
Where our beaches come from...
The silt deposited on Smithfield's Riverwalk by recent flooding along the Neuse looks like beach sand, doesn't it? Actually, I believe this is the stuff that eventually works its way downstream to line the banks of the river and the estuaries and ultimately the beaches of our coastal region.
Got a comment or a question?
If so, send an e-mail to editor@smithfieldweeklysun.com.
Or, if you prefer, mail a letter to P.O. Box 1363, Smithfield, N.C. 27577.
We'll confirm receipt of your correspondence and, if any or all of it is appropriate for publication, we'll ask your permission to print before we "go to press." If we publish your submission, all we will show is your name and place of residence. Neither your e-mail address nor your complete postal address will be shared with our readers or anyone else.
To make verification simpler, please sign up as a subscriber if you haven't already done so, using the online form below:
RETURN TO THE SMITHFIELD WEEKLY SUN FRONT PAGE