electionlineWeekly — July 5, 2012

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…

May 17, 2013

California's health exchange to serve as voter registration hub
Millions of Californians who contact the state's new health exchange to buy insurance will be given the opportunity to register to vote, too, a move that some Republicans fear could benefit Democrats. Jim Sanders, The Sacramento Bee.

Ore. county officials say automatic registration bill too complicated
Washington County Commissioner Greg Malinowski is among a slew of statewide county officials opposing a bill that would automatically register an estimated 500,000 potential Oregon voters. Katherine Driessen, The Oregonian.

Also in electionlineToday news: Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Maryland, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Texas (7:35 a.m. 05/17/13).