In this weeks edition:

A bad situation…
Before I get to the main topic of this writing I want to point out the article on this page pertaining to the upcoming Gubernatorial Debate. I imagine many of you are as frustrated with the election as I am. On the State level we now have the ability to better evaluate the candidates. And I don’t mean by listening to the high priced television commercials. This upcoming debate should be a good indicator on who will be best to lead our state for the next 4 years. I am pleased that the WV Press Association has taken the lead in producing impartial events such as this. Their past participation with organizations such as the State Chapter of the AARP has been very well received. I imagine this one will be equally as productive. If you have any question you would like to see addressed… please don’t hesitate to send it to us. We will be happy to forward it to the WVPA headquarters in Charleston. I came to work expecting a normal hectic Monday. What is normally not the best of situations took a turn south when Shelia from the County Clerk’s office called me just after 8:00 a.m. She told me that the Secretary of State’s office had informed them that some names had to come off the November Ballot. As a little background… I believe Secretary of State Natalie Tennant has been trying to get rid of paper ballots since she was elected. We have printed the ballots for years. Since Tennant took office a number of things have happened that I found distasteful. I even received a call from someone in that office threating me once when a technical problem that was far beyond our control could have jeopardized delivery of the ballots by the appropriate deadline. In all the years we printed ballots for John David Jordan we never had a problem. The issues that came up were dealt with and the ballots were always available in a timely manner before the election. In recent years there have been issues with the Secretary of State not certifying the candidates by the prescribed deadline. Even though they were late getting their job done it didn’t transfer to us on the other end of the spectrum. Since we are one of the few counties that use any kind of paper ballot, they are systematically crowding the deadlines so that we cannot meet them. With all that said, this year’s deadline was the worst ever. We worked hard and spend many long hours trying to stay ahead of the game. We got the final proof approved last week and promptly started the printing process. There is a huge amount of additional work with ballots including perforating, numbers and packaging. Of course by the time Shelia called me this AM, we had all 9,000 of them printed. All but the first 100 Absentee appear to be headed to the trash. I can’t help but question why it took the Secretary of State so long after the Supreme Court ruled that her husband could not get on the ballot as an Independent, to find fault with other candidates. If the decision had been made, even 48 hours after the Supreme Court handed down their ruling, we wouldn’t be trashing all those ballots, at taxpayer expense I might ad. This is not the first time this has happened either. In a past election, the ballots had to be reprinted due to an error through that same office. In that instance the state reimbursed the county for the cost of the second printing. That may and should happen this time, however, it is still a big waste of taxpayer dollars that should have been avoided.

Will return soon...


lolabgiven@mediacombb.net