Pirate's Cove

Welcome to North Carolina

North Carolina voters are more likely than those in other states to cast ballots in national elections without making a choice for president.

Unlike many states, a straight-party vote in North Carolina does not cast a vote for president. A ballot expert says the split makes it more likely that voters, especially new voters, will leave their polling places failing, by mistake, to vote for president.

The split between presidential and straight-party votes has brought the state national attention this year because the margin between Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain is expected to be close, and North Carolina’s electoral votes would be a prize for either candidate.

And, you know what is coming next. If Senator Neophyte loses, he and his loyal minions will claim some sort of election fraud, hijinks, voter suppression. You know the story and playbook by now.

In an analysis of election returns, Justin Moore, who received a graduate degree in computer science at Duke University, found that 3.15 percent of voters in North Carolina didn’t vote for president in 2000, and 2.57 percent didn’t cast a presidential vote in 2004.

Percentages higher than 1.1 percent — the national, presidential-year average — indicate a flawed ballot design or other problem, said Lawrence Norden, director of the Voting Technology Assessment Project at the Brennan Center at New York University’s law school.

Let me explain something to seethers on the Left who always see this as election fraud: when you go to the voting place, you are given a pretty piece of paper which states that if you pick to vote the party line, that does not include the presidential candidate. This was explained by the people at the table who gave the ballots out, too.

Furthermore, it says it on the freakin’ ballot! If people cannot take the time to read the directions on the ballot, as well as on a pretty piece of paper, and verbally, then, quite frankly, they are too stupid to be voting for the position of dog catcher (which Obama doesn’t have the experience for, either), much less President. Of course, most of these same people don’t bother to take the time to learn about the candidates either, beyond empty platitudes. Which is why I despise GOTV and mass registrations. It turns elections into hand counting at a wet t-shirt contest.

Consider how the HuffPo covered this

“I was sure I voted for president, but then a friend told me that a straight-party vote in North Carolina includes every office except president. That made me really mad,” Linda Chavis told OffTheBus.

Politically speaking, Chavis didn’t just fall off the turnip truck. She is a volunteer “crew chief” for the Obama campaign in Raleigh who did not notice the separation between the straight-party vote and the presidential vote on North Carolina’s poorly designed ballot in 2004. “I thought I voted against George W. Bush, but it turned out I didn’t vote for president at all. It’s an issue today because we’re still using the same confusing ballot,” said Chavis.

If that is the case, then she is, yes, too stupid to vote.

Want to see what the ballot looks like? Here. Freakin’ difficult, eh? A 1st grader could do it. But, not a Democrat.