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Editorials
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Saturday, June 28, 2008, 3:00 AM
Election argues for appointed positions Three hundred and eighty-six. That's the number of voters who turned out Tuesday in Wilson County to cast a ballot in the Democratic runoff for state labor commissioner between Mary Fant Donnan and John C. Brooks. That's a turnout of just a little more than 1 percent of the nearly 36,000 county residents who were eligible to vote in the Democratic election. To get those votes, it cost the Wilson Board of Elections several thousand dollars to staff all of its precincts and keep the doors to the polls open from 6:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. Statewide, the cost of the runoff is estimated to have been between $3.5 million and $5 million. Wilson County's poor showing at the polls Tuesday isn't an indictment on the voters, however. It is an indictment on what citizens were being asked to vote on. Tuesday's election is the most dramatic evidence yet of what we have been arguing for many years -- that Council of State seats, particularly those that few people know anything about, should be appointed, not elected. So few people came to the polls Tuesday, because very few people knew anything about the election they were being asked to make a decision on. Can you name what the commissioner of labor does in North Carolina? Can you even give his name? Alright, that's a trick question, because the commissioner of labor is a woman. But not many people know that her name is Cherie Berry, a Republican who has held the office since 2001. If her name sounds familiar, look at the safety certificate in an elevator the next time you are in one. The fact is that few people are prepared to make a good, informed decision on whether any of the candidates for the Council of State seats are prepared to hold the office for which they are running. In contrast to what happened in Wilson County, voter turnout was markedly higher in areas where legislative runoffs were being held. In N.C. Senate District 5, which includes Pitt, Wayne and Greene counties, voter turnout was closer to 20 percent in the Democratic runoff where Snow Hill Mayor Don Davis defeated Kathy Taft for the right to race Republican Louis Pate in the November general election. Making Council of State seats appointed doesn't diminish either the electorate or the jobs. It simply recognizes that there are positions that we the people should place in the hands of our elected leaders, while still holding our elected leaders' feet to the fire.
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