electionlineWeekly

May 16, 2013

First Person Singular: Gary Bartlett
KISS for a better today and tomorrow

By Gary Bartlett
North Carolina State Board of Elections

This article is going to be about my thoughts on effectively managing the elections process. I’ll tell you that from the start in case you had other ideas. As I sat down to write this article, I started kicking around some thoughts on what was going to be my hook. How do I capture your attention in order to get my points across?

My first thought was to entitle this article: Weathering the Tides of Political Influence and Change. And while the weather presents great opportunities to present analogies about the ebb and flow of the elections process or managing political storms, I felt that this was too cliché.

So how about comparing the elections process to a playground? On a playground, there are swings and slides and see saws, monkey bars and of course, the sandbox. A playground analogy could offer up nice realisms like “take turns” or “let everyone have a turn”, “stay in line,” “play nice,” and of course, “don’t touch the metal when it’s hot.” Effective messages, but again, it’s been done before.

Instead, I want your attention; so I’m going to use the hook that always works –KISSing. Sorry, no juicy or salacious stuff will be forthcoming from me. Remember, I warned you from the beginning? I’m going to hook you by speaking plain simple truths. In essence, I will be keeping it simple –because I’m not stupid. Read More…

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electionlineToday

May 21, 2013

Dutchess college students win voting rights settlement in federal court
Dutchess County’s Republican elections commissioner has agreed to stop demanding college students provide the name of their dorms and their room number in order to register to vote. Patricia Doxsey, Daily Freeman.

Ohio Senate puts brakes on plan to link in-state tuition to voting
A House-passed budget provision that would have cost Ohio universities about $370 million a year in tuition payments is likely to be removed by the Senate, but that doesn’t mean the issue of out-of-state students voting in Ohio is dead. Jim Siegel, The Columbus Dispatch.

Also in electionlineToday news: California, Florida, Hawaii, Idaho, Kansas, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin and national news (7:30 a.m. 05/21/13).