Carteret elects to ditch voting machines

By LYNN BONNER, DAN KANE AND J. ANDREW CURLISS   The News Observer   22 July 2005

The Carteret County voting machine that lost 4,438 votes and attracted national derision last fall has been unplugged for good.

The Carteret Board of Elections voted unanimously this week to their UniLect voting machines for a different system that will be in place in time for municipal elections this year.

"You cannot believe how much damage that has done to the question of voter confidence in the county," said Ed Pond, the Carteret elections board chairman. "We just feel we can't ask people to use that system on which 5,000 people lost their votes."

The board doesn't know for sure what it will use as a replacement, but hand-counted paper ballots or rented machines of some kind are in the running.

The lost Carteret votes kept the resolution of a close statewide race for agriculture commissioner on ice for months.

While dealing with the unwanted attention, Carteret officials saw that there were questions about UniLect machines in other counties.

Pennsylvania officials told three of its counties they could not use UniLect machines that ped votes last year. UniLect machines in Burke County in western North Carolina produced questionable results.

Carteret elections officials were waiting for state or federal guidelines on what machines the county could buy as replacements, Pond said, but decided they couldn't wait any longer.

Budget cliffhanger

House Speaker Jim Black held out slim hope Thursday that lawmakers could get a budget in place by midnight Tuesday, when a stopgap spending measure expires.

But three hours later, House leaders rolled out another stopgap measure to keep government running until Aug. 5. The House will vote on it Monday and, if it passes, send it to the Senate for a vote Tuesday.

The new spending measure would reduce some heartburn among public school, community college and UNC officials by providing more money for growing enrollments.

Earlier Thursday, Gov. Mike Easley said he might have to issue an executive order to acquire the money to pay for new teachers and other needs created by growing numbers of students if lawmakers could not wrap up the budget by next week.

Cain's Senate hearing

Raleigh lawyer Jim Cain's ticket to Denmark could get punched Monday.

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee has scheduled a confirmation hearing Monday for Cain, who is President Bush's nominee to become ambassador to Denmark.

Should Cain receive a favorable review, his nomination would still go to the full Senate for final approval.

Cain probably will face questions about the war on terror. Denmark has been an ally of the U.S. in Iraq and recent media reports in Denmark indicate authorities are investigating terrorist-recruiting operations based there.

A Gallup poll this week showed that 75 percent of Danes believe it is very or extremely likely that terrorists will strike there in the near future.

Bernstein memorial set

A memorial service for Jim Bernstein, a former assistant secretary with the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services who died of bladder cancer last month, will be held at 2 p.m. Sunday at The Carolina Club at the George Watts Hill Alumni Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Bernstein, who worked for state government for 31 years, was a national leader in the improvement of rural health care.