Less than a third of the money that election do-gooders had hoped to use to fund “non-partisan” campaigns for judgeships is available for the upcoming races.

My favorite paragraph from one news story is here:

Another factor is the confusion of many taxpayers who didn’t understand that allocating $3 of their income tax to the program would not increase their tax owed or decrease their refund, officials say.

According to these public officials, it must simply be impossible that citizens understand the public financing system but don’t choose to support it. I guess the implication is that citizens are too stupid. Yet, even if checking the box would reduce my tax burden by $3, I would not check the box because I believe public financing is anathama to the preservation of liberty. Perhaps there are a lot of North Carolinians dumb like me.