On November 2, 2010, the Republican party gained control of the North Carolina General Assembly for the first time since 1898… 112 years! I’ve had the opportunity to get to know a number of the people that will be representing us in this new General Assembly and am hopeful that NC will turn back towards freedom and prosperity. Clearly, the number one priority of this new General Assembly will be to rein in the spending of state government and address the growing budget deficit. Aside from this first priority, there are a number of priorities that I would like to encourage the next General Assembly to consider:
Election reform
It seems like it has become normal to expect voting problems and election fraud during each election. If we are to be a self-governing people, as our founders intended, then we must do everything we can to insure the integrity of the election process.
- Require a photo ID to vote
The easiest and most important step that can be taken to insure that every person who votes is legally allowed to vote, to insure that each voter lives in the precinct that they claim and to insure that each voter votes only once is to require that each person show a photo ID in order to vote. I worked as a poll observer this year and watched over and over again as people willingly volunteered to show their driver’s license when they signed in to vote. It was very apparent to me that people expect that they should prove who they are in order to vote. The only ones that should be concerned with producing an ID are those who are trying to take advantage of our election process.
The new General Assembly should require that everyone that votes show a photo ID to prove their identity.
- All ballots should list the party affiliation of all candidates
Currently, candidates for the NC state judiciary and candidates for school board are listed on our ballots without listing the candidates party affiliation. These offices have been referred to as non-partisan offices. That is a contradiction. Every candidate running for any office has a party affiliation. A person’s party affiliation tells us something about the person’s beliefs, philosophy and worldview. Previous General Assemblys removed the candidates party affiliation from the ballot in an attempt to make liberal candidates for office more palatable to voters by hiding their party affiliation.
The new General Assembly should require that every candidate for any office be listed on the ballot with their party affiliation.
- Election: Straight party voting should be eliminated
Our current ballots allow a person to vote for all the candidates that are running in a particular party with one “click”. This allows a person to vote without considering the people who are actually listed on the ballot. Even if a voter votes only for the candidates of a certain party, every voter should be required to vote for the individual people and not for specific parties.
The new General Assembly should remove straight party ticket voting from all future ballots.
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Scott Cumbie (Facebook)
http://www.cumbieforcongress.com/
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