Just when you think North Carolina governance cannot sink any lower….
Superior Court Judge Robert Hobgood sided with the state and upheld restrictions on recognizing parties not Republicrat. In other words, adding more than two choices to the ballot would burden the state and confuse voters.
“The more parties there are that are recognized by the State and that place candidates on the ballot, the greater the chance there is for ballots that are so long as to be unwieldy and to risk voter confusion and frustration of the electoral process,” Judge Hobgood‘s opinion claims.
Barbara Howe, the chairwoman of the Libertarian Party of North Carolina, notes that US sponsored elections in Iraq featured over 100 parties — in the middle of a war. Maybe Judge Hobgood hangs out with too many Franklin County yahoos who still have VCRs blinking 12:00. Times have changed. Folks can handle choice. Or freedom as some might call it.
The opinion also cites NC’s huge list of council of state elective offices as a requiring as simple a ballot as possible. Seems the obvious solution here — as many reformers have noted — is to greatly reduce the number of statewide elected offices. But as that would give the governor more power at the expense of the General Assembly and other would-be crooks on the make, how likely is that?
The case included former Libertarian Party candidates for Charlotte city council David Gable and Justin Cardone as plantiffs. If the state LP can scrape together enough money to appeal the ruling it probably will, although no official decision has been made on that front. Full opinion here.
Bonus Observation: Judge Hobgood is the big thinker who upheld the state’s incentive deal with Dell.
