Making things easier

How many of you went to vote last week and asked for a Republican ballot only to discover many of the important local races were missing? We know about 225 Republican Primary ballots were cast, of the 2,952 total. We also know that some of those votes were intended for local candidates on the Democratic Primary ballot, particularly those running for county commission, Probate Judge and Clerk of Superior Court.

It’s past time for county officials to take down this barrier in voting in local races. They could adopt some of the good sense of the board of education and city council and do away with partisan races. The only winners are the local political parties who pocket half of the qualifying fees and pay none of the expense of putting on the elections. Taxpayers foot the bill for all of that.

Senator Joseph Carter, our District 13 state senator, resigned his seat to run for Superior Court Judge in Tifton. Carter, a Republican, was the only person to qualify for the seat. No Democrats challenged. Secretary of State Karen Handel, a Republican, said only Republicans could qualify last month. Now there is a special election on August 5 to fill Carter’s seat. It will be a Republican Primary run-off contest. Therefore, only persons who did not vote in the Democratic Primary, or voted Republican, last week may vote.

Why do we have such nonsense? Only about one-third of voters bothered to vote on July 15. Why make it more complicated than it needs to be? It makes no sense.

We’ll have at least one new commissioner and a new chairman of the county commission in January. State Rep. Jay Roberts (R-Ocilla) has said he will sponsor no local legislation, which would be required to change local elections to nonpartisan, unless it comes with a unanimous vote of the commission. This issue would be a good early test the first of next year to see if we will have a commission that’s interested in putting aside personal agendas and representing us. Of course, nothing’s stopping them from doing it now if they want. We’ll be watching. It’s past time to make the move to local nonpartisan races. —TCA