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Homework can help with overly long ballot
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Published: May 4, 2008
RALEIGH -- During the typical election, the phone calls would start tonight, two nights before most of my friends vote on Election Day.
Connie will likely call to say that she and Denis don't know anything about the candidates in three races. Then she'll ask if I know anything about the judicial contenders.
Then Gwen will call. Her husband, Tom, thinks he knows something about politics, but Gwen doesn't listen to him because he's crazy. She blames me for her decision to marry him 20 years ago but still considers my insights on candidates.
When in college, my son would go through his whole North Carolina absentee ballot with me, but now he votes in Oregon, so I can't help him.
The point of this story is that intelligent and educated people who stay current with the news find North Carolina's long ballot daunting. They don't know most of the candidates. So they call me because I often do -- at least for the statewide ballot.
But even when you have a full-time job that involves following politicians, it's hard to keep up with all of the candidates.
I have a new idea for my friends. They should venture over to a Web site designed just for people like them. For anyone willing to spend a few minutes reading up on the candidates, the joint site from the N.C. Center for Voter Education and UNC-TV is very good. I reached it through www.ncvotered.com.
The first step in preparing to vote is to know the candidates on your ballot. Sample ballots are usually available either through the local board of elections or by visiting the state board's Web site, www.sboe.state.nc.us/. If you know your districts for legislative races, you won't even need to do check the sample ballot.
At the voter-education site, you can go through the online version of the voters guide. It's fact-based. It will tell you, for example, Candidate Johnson's age, residence, job, education, how many years he has lived in North Carolina, and lots more stuff. There's also space at the bottom for a candidate's statement.
After I look through this material, I like to click on a candidate's own Web site, which is usually linked from the voter-education site. Some candidate sites are good, some excellent and some dreadful. A candidate's willingness to lay out a platform on a Web site, where it isn't going to cost any money to do so, is a good sign of that candidate's seriousness -- at least in my opinion.
The voter-education site also has audio podcasts of in-depth interviews conducted with most of the statewide candidates. (Some refused to participate.) A podcast, for the non iPod generation, is an audio file. You don't need an iPod for it. The site contains a link that will allow you to subscribe to the podcasts as they are produced. There's also a tab for getting right to those that have already been recorded. At this late date, you'll go to the tab and listen directly from the Web site. But, for the fall elections, you might want to subscribe and listen on your iPod, or through your computer's music program -- possibly iTunes.
My suggestion is to narrow your preferences to two candidates through the available text, news stories and TV ads. Then listen to both of their interviews, which are quite good even if they are not as testy as many journalists would prefer.
There's another strong feature at the site. In one spot, you can find all the other information you need about voting -- deadlines, rules, procedures, etc. So, if you wondered about early voting -- which ended yesterday -- you could have gotten your answers here.
North Carolina's ballot is still too long. The legislature should convert a number of offices from elected to appointed. But since that won't happen, we'll continue to vote. As we prepare to vote, surfing over to ncvotered.com makes a lot more sense than calling me, because I'll be watching the Cardinals and Cubs on ESPN tonight and won't want to talk politics.
■ Paul O'Connor writes for the Journal from Raleigh. He can be reached at poconnor@wsjournal.com .
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