Raines

Raines : I told you so…

A Liberal’s View Point

by Mike Raines

Email : raines@nencnews.com

     Most stories like this start off with some variation of “I hate to say I told you so, BUT…” I suppose I’m no exception, but I want to assure you that the reason I hate it is I wish we could have prevented it. Well, guess what? If we don’t fix the problem before 2010, it will probably happen again. What am I talking about?

     In an article titled “Redistricting In Currituck County”, August 3, 2007, I said “Whether Currituck County would be better served by 7 Commissioners rather than 5 is definitely debatable, but there was a referendum, and it passed. Unfortunately, as with most referendum ballot questions, probably 95% of the voters had no idea what they were voting on when they encountered the question on their ballot. That is a serious problem with ballots of this nature but that is a topic for another day. Another oddity is that even though a commissioner is supposed to represent his/her district, they are voted on by the entire county. This makes no sense at all, but it is too late to fix it now. Just add it to the list of parts of our government that are broken and needs fixing, and you and I can attend to it later. The voters in the candidate’s district alone should get to vote on their commissioner, and the at-large candidate(s). The district commissioners roughly correspond to our federal congressmen, and the at-large commissioners roughly correspond to our federal senators, thus making sure the voters of the county are well represented. By making the district commissioners beholden to the voters of the other districts, who may have many more votes, we dilute the representation of the commissioner’s own district.” You can read this article and any past articles at http://liberalviewpoint.home.mchsi.com/. Also, from there, you can send me email discussing past or present topics. Just keep it civil…

     It occurred to me to check the recent election results to see if the outcome would have been changed if we had corrected the rules to let the residents of each district choose their own commissioner. In the case of district 2, the residents of district 2 elected Jerry Wright as their commissioner. Because all the other residents of Currituck County got to also vote for district 2 commissioner, district 2 is now “represented” by John Rorer. In district 2, Wright got 52% of the vote, while Rorer got just 48%. The irony of this situation is that Currituck County also has two at-large commissioners, who are (correctly) elected by all the voters of Currituck County and are supposed to represent all the voters of the county.

     Maybe now is the time to fix this situation because if we don’t, in the next local election the residents of Poplar Branch, Coinjock, and Church’s Island precincts will probably have their “representative” elected by the voters in districts 1,2,4,and 5. And Moyock will have its “representative” elected by voters in districts 1,2,3, and 4. This is not how democracy is supposed to work. At-large commissioners should be elected at-large. District Commissioners should not be elected at-large.

Mike Raines is a resident of Currituck, N. C. and is featured as a regular columnist, in the spirit of offering different viewpoints and opinions on issues of local, state and national levels. The writer can be contacted via email at:
one00100@mchsi.com

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