Election Questions

SUN JOURNAL NEW BERN, LETTER TO THE EDITOR:   Election questions

August 11, 2010 10:09 PM


For the past few days, The News & Observer has carried articles about cozy and questionable dealings among State Board of Elections Chairman Larry Leake, Director Gary Bartlett, Gov. Beverly Perdue, Election Systems & Software (the company that sells and maintains all the voting machines in North Carolina), Printelect (the company that prints ballots for all but four of North Carolina’s counties), and its owner, Owen Andrews. Large campaign contributions to Gov. Perdue’s campaign, lavish parties for elections officials, Printelect’s ballots costing as much as double (33 cents per ballot vs. 12 to 19 cents per ballot) what the four counties who use other printers pay are all in the mix of this unfolding drama.

It doesn’t sound good, does it?

Call me paranoid if you must, but after reading three of the articles and mulling it all over for a while, I began to wonder if only the tip of the iceberg has been exposed. It sounds like Election Systems & Software handles all our voting machines. Do they count the votes, too? What if an election is close and a recount is done, does ES&S handle the recount? Are there computer literate representatives of both parties present and cognizant of the process? Or does the possibility of our vote’s being tampered with exist?

I’m sure we taxpayers pay too much for our ballots. I hope our ballots are counted fairly and accurately, but I don’t have confidence that they are. I sincerely hope that the reporters who are following this story will keep investigating until they peel back the last layer of the Board of Elections questionable practices onion.

Raynor James, New Bern, NC

Note:  PrintElect is building another "PrintElect/Office Solutions" location at Trent and Morton Rds, New Bern