U.S. Justice Department Spurns Kinston Decision on Elections
KINSTON (By Lee Raynor, Carolina Journal Online) — City leaders appear unwilling to challenge a U.S. Department of Justice ruling to overturn a citizen vote changing Kinston municipal elections from partisan to nonpartisan. Acting Assistant Attorney General Loretta King, who announced the change, was the same DOJ official who, The Washington Times reports, recommended that the federal government “drop voter intimidation charges against members of the militant New Black Panthers” in Philadelphia during the 2008 presidential election.
Sixty-four percent of Kinston voters said “yes” to a November ballot initiative that would have switched city elections from partisan to nonpartisan. The measure passed by a 4,977 to 2,819 margin, with seven of nine precincts approving the change. The DOJ decision leaves the city as one of five municipalities in North Carolina to hold partisan elections, and the only one east of Charlotte.
King, in a letter overturning the election, said the city did not meet its burden of proof that the change “has neither a discriminatory purpose nor a discriminatory effect.” King’s letter went on to declare, “Removing the partisan cue in municipal elections will, in all likelihood, eliminate the single factor that allows black candidates to be elected to office. In Kinston elections, voters base their choice more on the race of a candidate than his or her political affiliation, and without either the appeal to party loyalty or the ability to vote a straight ticket, the limited support from white voters for a black Democratic candidate will diminish even more. And given that the city’s electorate is overwhelmingly Democratic, while the motivating factor for this change may be partisan, the effect will be strictly racial.”
Sixty-four percent of Kinston voters said “yes” to a November ballot initiative that would have switched city elections from partisan to nonpartisan. The measure passed by a 4,977 to 2,819 margin, with seven of nine precincts approving the change. The DOJ decision leaves the city as one of five municipalities in North Carolina to hold partisan elections, and the only one east of Charlotte.
King, in a letter overturning the election, said the city did not meet its burden of proof that the change “has neither a discriminatory purpose nor a discriminatory effect.” King’s letter went on to declare, “Removing the partisan cue in municipal elections will, in all likelihood, eliminate the single factor that allows black candidates to be elected to office. In Kinston elections, voters base their choice more on the race of a candidate than his or her political affiliation, and without either the appeal to party loyalty or the ability to vote a straight ticket, the limited support from white voters for a black Democratic candidate will diminish even more. And given that the city’s electorate is overwhelmingly Democratic, while the motivating factor for this change may be partisan, the effect will be strictly racial.”
posted by BP News Bureau | 12:00 PM
1 Comments:
I thought we all have the right to vote for whom we believe in. Be he/she white, black or green. We as Americans have that right to vote and elect into office whom we want, and think can full fill the needs of their fellow man, So where does it stop, we need to grow up and not live in the pass and move forward, not backwards, and that my friends is just what we are doing here in Kinston.
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