The Cary Town Council will hold a public hearing Thursday to discuss the instant-runoff voting system, which allows voters to rank their choices.

Richmond Times-Dispatch, 02-18-09
James V. Meath is a partner and member of the labor and employment practice at Williams Mullen. Contact him at (804) 783-6412 or jmeath@williamsmullen.com.

E ver since the presidential primaries ended, a storm has been gathering in the business community. Then-candidate Barack Obama’s talk of the “card check” bill (misleadingly titled the Employee Free Choice Act, or EFCA), energized labor unions and terrified businesses across the country.

This proposed legislation would completely revolutionize labor law as we know it and seriously damage the business community’s ability to maintain control over its work force and to satisfy the ever-changing needs of its customers in a demanding global economy. In short, this is bombshell legislation and it is not only on the horizon, but is teed up to be introduced any day now in the House, where it was passed in 2007. With an intense debate in the Senate looming, I began to ask myself, “What has changed so radically in our makeup to make this and other pro-union, anti-business legislation so prominent on the agenda of Congress?”

After practicing traditional labor law for 30 years, I know that this legislation would never have seen the light of day 15, 10, or even five years ago. What has changed? There has been a profound change in the business climate with regard to employee rights in the workplace. This, coupled with a dearth of union organizing over the past 20 years, has produced a whole generation of owners, senior executives, managers, supervisors, legislators, judges, lawyers, and employees who have not experienced any type of labor organizing situation, much less experienced any type of labor strife. Because of this, they are more open to discussing the union question.

COUPLE THIS WITH the fact that our educational system, to some extent, and our work environments have evolved into entities that train for and reward teamwork, tolerance, and collaborative thinking, all of which are noble objectives. In that context, many of our current stakeholders in business are more open and malleable when it comes to the old-school, black-or-white questions about unionization.

Of late, I have been asked to speak extensively on this topic and invariably two things happen at these sessions: (1) there are rarely more than three or four people who say that they have any significant experience with unions; and (2) in the course of the question-and-answer period, someone will ask, “Jim, how bad can this actually be?” Indeed, I am astounded by the number of senior executives and owners who opt not to advise their work force of their own personal position that a union could hurt the business and the employees. Seen in this light, it is understandable that legislation that is vaguely portrayed as being intended to “increase employee free choice” and “improve the lot of the middle class” does not set off the alarms that it once would have.

This, in turn, is closely related to the basic misunderstanding of what EFCA really does. PACs and labor
unions have executed a brilliant publicity campaign that has misled the general population about the legislation.

THE BILL IS actually very simple. The three main tenets of the bill include: (1) abolition of a secret ballot election, (2) compulsory binding arbitration for first contracts after 120 days of bargaining, and (3) punitive fines for violations of the National Labor Relations Act by employers. These elements strip not only the business of its rights, but the workers of theirs as well.

These principles that EFCA would change have been in place for more than 60 years — so “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Labor has complained for years that the system is broken, but is it truly broken?
The facts are that unions win anywhere from 45 percent to 50 percent of secret-ballot elections. That seems relatively balanced. Unions gain first contracts in one in three of the elections they win. The opposition argues that this number is far too low.

I happen to have considerable experience in the negotiation of labor contracts, specifically first contracts. The reason most first contracts fail is because unions come to the bargaining table and make demands that are excessive, demands that refuse to allow the business the flexibility it needs to meet the needs of its customers.

RESPONSIBLE businesses — knowing that these demands are anti-competitive and will diminish, if not eliminate, their ability to make a profit — refuse to concede to them and lawfully say, “No.” Those that do not, capitulate — and when the business cycle turns against them, or some profound business event (such as an increase in competition) occurs, they cannot be flexible and their business suffers, or — in the worst case — vanishes. If this sounds familiar, it should. The woes of the auto industry are one of the best examples of the above.

In sum, the unions’ core objective has always been to organize members. That is their sole mission. In the 1960s, they represented 23 percent to 25 percent of the work force. Today they represent less than 6 percent of the private-sector work force. Essentially, they have failed in their core business. They have replaced that core business with raising money for PACs, 529s, and political candidates. They are using that influence in an attempt to come full circle, back to their membership roots.

In short, unions don’t need EFCA, they just need minimal change in a system that actually has worked for the past 60 years, which will turn the tables in their favor. Increases in the number of union-organized employees in this country will occur. That will be due in part to modifications in existing labor laws, but also a great desire that we all have to just get along.

PITTSBORO, N.C. — At its meeting on Feb. 16 the Chatham County Board of County Commissioners voted 3-2 in favor of letting residents decide the fate of liquor by the drink on a countywide ballot.

The commissioners have asked the Chatham County Board of Elections to put the issue on the ballot within the next 120 days.

ST. PAUL, Minn. – Jesus, Bob Dylan and Mickey Mouse will play a part in determining Minnesota’s next senator. So will voters who scrawled the same name for every local race. And so will people who marked their choice not just with a darkened oval but with an X, too – maybe for emphasis, or maybe for a do-over.

Those ballots by people who took creative liberties, as well as thousands of others being challenged, are critical in the tight battle between Republican Sen. Norm Coleman and his Democratic challenger, Al Franken. A state board begins meeting Tuesday to decide their fate.

But an Associated Press analysis of the more than 5,000 challenged ballots found that most of the votes have clear intent and no deficiencies for which they would be disqualified under Minnesota law. The AP’s cataloguing includes many challenges that were later withdrawn by the campaigns and the roughly 3,500 that remained up in the air as of Saturday.

Of the 2.9 million votes already recounted, Coleman leads Franken by fewer than 200. But the AP’s analysis of the 3,500 challenges found that nearly 300 wouldn’t benefit either man because the voter clearly favored a third-party candidate or skipped the race.

The AP also found that of the 3,500 challenged ballots that easily could be assigned, Franken netted 200 more votes than Coleman. But Coleman has withdrawn significantly fewer ballot challenges than Franken – that is, the pool of challenges that can now be awarded to Franken is larger, and both campaigns announced Sunday that they would withdraw more challenges by Tuesday.

Of the remaining challenges, the AP found that only about 1,640 couldn’t reliably be awarded to either candidate. More than 400possible Franken votes were being held up on grounds that those voters identified their ballots through write-ins, initials, phone numbers or some other distinctive marking. At least 300 possible Coleman votes were in limbo for the same reasons.

Franken could also get a boost because a few more of his potential supporters than Coleman’s were among the nearly 600 ballots that had two filled-in ovals as well as crossed-out votes, an X above or below their darkened oval, or different-size partial marks in more than one oval.

The state’s laws on voter intent offer latitude when a person fails to cleanly mark an oval or connect an arrow on the two types of optical scan ballots used by the state.

Voters who use an X outside the oval can still have that vote counted if it’s close to a candidate’s spot. They can use checks for some offices and fill out ovals for others. And voters who change their minds can try to erase a mark in favor of another choice as long as the remaining vote is apparent.

Secretary of State Mark Ritchie, who heads the state Canvassing Board with four judges, has set a goal of completing the challenged ballot reviews by Friday. The AP analysis suggested that the process could move fast once the board shows its mind on the challenge types that occurred most frequently.

Ohio State University election law expert Edward Foley, who is closely tracking Minnesota’s recount, said the board’s early rulings could set patterns for the rest of the review. Foley said the campaigns won’t want to lose the goodwill of board members by forcing them to rule on the same question repeatedly.

Several members made clear in a hearing Friday they wouldn’t have patience for weak challenges.

“The danger for both candidates is that meritorious challenges are going to get swamped in a sea of frivolous challenges,” Ramsey County Judge Edward Cleary warned. “You know when they’re frivolous; we know when they’re frivolous. Don’t make us tell you that.”

Foley didn’t expect challenges based on oddball write-ins for cartoon characters, musicians and athletes to fare well.

“I think that will be looked on with disfavor,” he said of the voters who wrote in Mickey Mouse or his pals Donald Duck and Goofy on ballots where there was a clear Senate vote. Tiger Woods, Bob Dylan and The Beatles got a few votes for local offices, and Jesus was several voters’ pick for president. Others scribbled or put smiley faces near their choices.

Though ballots can’t be rejected if they are slightly soiled or defaced, voters can put their ballot at risk with a distinguishing characteristic that is seen as an attempt to identify it. But determining what constitutes an identifying mark is tricky.

Ritchie, a Democrat, said a ruling in the state’s 1962 gubernatorial race recount found that the mark had to have been made with the voter’s intent to identify the ballot.

CLAYTON, N.C. — Clayton voters will elect two town council members Tuesday.

This comes more than a year after the State Board of Elections discarded the results of the November 2007 town council race because poll workers gave Clayton ballots to 18 people who live outside the town. The 18 votes could have made a difference for the second and third place candidates. 

Lawsuits about whether all or some of the candidates should be on the new ballot held up the new election. About six weeks ago, a judge ruled that all five candidates should be on the ballot.

The candidates are: Alexander Atchinson (incumbent), Alex Harding (incumbent), Art Holder, R.S. (Butch) Lawter, Jr., and Michael Starks.

Local officials expect a record low turnout.

“If there’s 500 people that show up I’ll be surprised,” said Leigh Anne Price, Director of the Johnston County Board of Elections.

About 9,500 people are eligible to vote in the election. Just 10 people voted early at the Board of Elections.

About 40 requested absentee ballots. The board received just one of those ballots back as of Friday, Price said.

“I just feel like since there’s nothing else on the ballot other than that, that people are just not going to come out for it like they would if there was more than one race on the ballot,” Price said.

In the November 2007 election, 1,188 people voted, she added.

Clayton residents can vote at their local precincts on Tuesday from 6:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m.

Wake County Board of Elections (BOE) reported that 251,332 citizens participated in the early voting process, of which 10,778 registered and voted on the same day.

Wake County easily surpassed its initial goal of accommodating 200,000 early voters. More people voted during the early voting period than on Election Day, when 168,060 residents came out to vote.

Absentee Ballots
The BOE mailed out over 27,000 requested absentee ballots and received back 22,553 completed ballots.

Provisional Ballots
Wake County had 4,025 provisional ballots cast in 2008 (of those, 2,068 were qualified Wake County voters whose ballots were counted), in comparison to more than 13,000 cast in 2004 (of those, 10,915 were qualified ballots). There were less provisional ballots cast due to a change in the law, allowing voters to update their addresses at early voting sites. A pilot program in Wake County allowed every precinct to have a laptop, which verified voter eligibility and voting locations.

Wake County’s BOE certified the Presidential Election on Friday, November 14, 2008, at 11 a.m. It marked the first time the County has not conducted a countywide recount after an election in about 18 years. Even with the election over, BOE staff still has to sort one-stop (early ballots), absentee by mail ballots and provisional ballots (nearly 275,000) into 198 precincts.

High Voter Turnout
In total, 444,013 people voted in Wake County for the General Election, which means that Wake County had a 75 percent voter turn out.

The State Board will certify the statewide election on Tuesday, November 25, 2008. It does not appear as if a statewide recount will be needed.

A number of losing Republican candidates in last week’s election are blaming their defeats on Democrats who voted a straight ticket ballot.

The reality is that Republican voters chose a straight ticket in almost the same proportion as Democratic voters.

There are 4,870,261 voters in North Carolina registered with one of the two major political parties. Of those 2,867,453 are registered Democrats, or 58.9 percent.

In last week’s election 2,128,983 voters cast a straight ticket either for the Democrats or Republicans (Libertarians are excluded from this analysis.) Of the major party straight ticket voters 1,264,076 were Democrats, or 59.4 percent.

So Democrats make up 58.9 percent of major party registrants and made up 59.4 percent of major party straight ticket voters. That paltry disparity is a lacking excuse for why Republicans lost major offices, particularly given that candidates in low information races like Steve Troxler and Cherie Berry were able to weather the tide.

DENVER – The drumbeat to vote early is paying dividends for Barack Obama, especially in key battleground states in the South and West where Democrats have cast many more ballots than Republicans.
  
About a third of the American electorate voted before Election Day, largely to avoid long lines at the polls.
 
Record early voting by Democrats in Florida, North Carolina, Iowa, Nevada and Colorado suggests the Obama campaign has rolled up an early advantage over John McCain.

More than 29 million people in 30 states have already voted. Democrats submitted 1 million more ballots than Republicans, though registration does not always indicate who voters choose for president.

Obama, who campaigned in Charlotte on Monday, had reason to expect early voting was breaking his way in North Carolina. Blacks made up 28 percent of that state’s early vote, though they are 21 percent of the population and accounted for just 19 percent of North Carolina’s overall 2004 vote.

RALEIGH, N.C. – Election watchdogs fear that a long-standing feature of ballots in North Carolina could lead thousands of straight-party voters to mistakenly fail to vote for president and possibly produce a replay of the postelection battle in Florida eight years ago.
 
Since the 1960s, North Carolina ballots have allowed voters to cast a straight-party ticket – Democrat, Republican or Libertarian – by checking a single box, but state law requires voters to separately mark their choice for president.

On the ballot, the straight-party vote option appears below the presidential selection, and counties have included explanations and warnings that voters must mark the White House race separately. Nevertheless, election watchdogs fear hurried voters might ignore the explanations, see the straight-ticket option first and assume it includes a vote for president.

“The policy itself needs to change, but at this point we need to be reminding voters to be prepared and follow directions,” said Bob Hall, director of the advocacy group Democracy North Carolina.

An Associated Press review of 2004 election results shows about 1.5 percent of ballots in North Carolina did not contain a presidential vote – higher than the 1 percent national average of so-called undervotes. Election observers believe the North Carolina ballot accounts for much of the difference.

If North Carolina’s 2004 undervote had matched the national average, there would have been 18,000 more votes for president.

Four years ago, that wouldn’t have mattered because President Bush won North Carolina by more than 435,000 votes.

But this year, polls show a tight race in North Carolina. And, a boom in voter registration and early voting among Democrats appears to have put Obama within reach of winning this state, which hasn’t cast its 15 electoral votes for the Democratic presidential nominee since 1976.

Hall fears a repeat of the chaotic 2000 election in Florida which Bush won by a mere 537 votes. A confusing butterfly ballot in one county lead some voters to vote for third-party candidate Pat Buchanan when they meant to support Democrat Al Gore. During a protracted court battle, election officials examined chads hanging from paper ballots to detect voter intent.

“A losing candidate could use this in a legal challenge and urge the Board of Elections and a court to review the straight party choices that lack a presidential mark,” Hall said.

North Carolina’s State Board of Elections has trained county poll workers to give voters verbal instructions about the straight ticket option and will include with each ballot a special slip of paper that details the same information.

Johnnie McLean, deputy director of the state elections board, said voters are smarter than people think and the ballots and instructions are clear.

But solid instructions and education at the polls aren’t enough, said Lawrence Norden, who tracks ballot designs for the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University’s law school.

“When you have a counterintuitive design, no matter how much public education you put out and now how matter how clear your instructions are, you’re still going to have some voters that make mistakes because of the design,” Norden said.

“Very often, people are in a hurry when they go to vote. They may feel pressured because people are standing behind them in line. Having somebody tell them something about the ballot – they may not be listening.”
 
McLean said people complain about the ballot in every election and the board has repeatedly but unsuccessfully recommended that the General Assembly change the ballot law.

Democrats created the straight-ticket law in the 1960s. More conservative than the national Democratic party, state Democrats feared that relatively liberal candidates at the top of the ticket might reduce their appeal among straight-ticket voters, so they made sure the presidency would be a separate question for voters.

The Obama campaign has distributed fliers about the ballot and mailed sample ballots with an explanation.

“We certainly have a concerted effort to get the word out there about how the ballot works,” said Obama campaign spokeswoman Susan Lagana.

And Republican spokesman Brent Woodcox said, “We want to make sure people know before people get into the voting booth how to vote to make sure it’s representative of what they want.”