Good day and welcome to DKos Asheville. This is the weekly DKos Asheville open thread for Saturday, May 15th. We try to get together every weekend to share with everyone what we're all up to in Western North Carolina and beyond. We hope this group and others serve to invigorate us locally and regionally here on Daily Kos, building on the sense of community that's grown through our online engagement. DKos Asheville and other local and state groups can give us all a better sense of connection, a better understanding of who we stand with, work with, and share with. We hope this local and wider community can help leverage our orange passion for progressive politics to elect more and better Democrats.
Tip of the week:
1- Learn about registering voters in your state. Takes just a few minutes.
2- Aquire voter registration forms and keep them with you.
3- Make this shirt and wear it.
4- Register voters.
5- Follow up with legal requirements within required times.
6- Feel good, make a difference.
Please follow us below the fold. This week's edition is an opportunity to talk about North Carolina politics and discuss what we can do to support each other and build networks. I've put together a North Carolina news and issue round up that I hope you enjoy. Please help shed light on these stories.
We had the great pleasure of meeting DocDawg at our Roanoke meet up and while we were there he mentioned his interest in data mining and that he had been looking into voter registration irregularities. The following stories are a result of that research.
Courtesy of North Carolina Blue
Exclusive to Daily Kos by DocDawg
A data-mining analysis of information publicly available from the North Carolina State Board of Elections has uncovered apparently systematic irregularities in voter registration efforts which are required of the state by the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA; the so-called 'Motor Voter Act'). These irregularities, potentially disenfranchising tens of thousands of poverty-level North Carolina citizens, have all occurred during the Republican administration of North Carolina's current governor, Pat McCrory (R).
It would be historic (by Leslie Salzillo) to see this North Carolina Republican dictatorship crumble and fall. Currently, Republicans own the majority in the North Carolina House, Senate, Supreme Court, and Governor's Office. This could be a game-changer for the Koch brothers, Art Pope, and the many Republicans who won during the 2014 Midterm Elections, especially in states that have a preponderancy for racism and voter suppression.
In the four days since this story first broke (by DocDawg) here at Daily Kos, public awareness and media coverage of the scandal have both begun to snowball rapidly - thanks in no small measure to the many readers who shared it widely via Twitter, Facebook, email, and face-to-face, and legal actions to investigate and hold the perpetrators responsible have already begun. These fast-breaking reactions are summarized below.
Proposed Photo ID Rules – Do You Have Your Papers?
By Tom Sullivan
The NCSBE has issued proposed rules for applying NC’s new photo ID law. Democracy NC summarizes:
"WHAT ARE THE RULES: Democracy NC believes the rules are relatively good in the context of a very bad law. Here are some highlights"
The address on the ID does not matter; it can be different from your registration address.
Names on the ID and registration roll should be “substantially similar.” Variations are okay, such as: parts of the name in different order or missing or with hyphens, or a maiden and a married name on the ID and voter roll.
Changes in your appearance from the photo are expected – hair color, weight, aging, etc.
The three top precinct workers at the poll (called judges) must ALL agree that the ID does not resemble the voter for it to be rejected. If any one of those precinct judges says it is OK, then it’s OK.
A voter may provide additional documents to help the judges decide in the voter’s favor.
If the ID is rejected, the voter can cast a pro-visional ballot, but it won’t count unless the voter presents a photo ID within a few days. (This is the worst part of the ID law.)
Curbside voters who vote from a car may use a wider range of IDs, such as a utility bill or document from a government agency with their name and address. Curbside voters must swear they can’t stand in line or walk to the poll due to their “age or physical difficulty.”
University of North Carolina system teetering on the edge. Progress NC Action brings us this from the Charlotte Observer.
The University of North Carolina became America’s first public university in 1789, and in the past several decades the state has built arguably the best public university system in the nation.
Now, outgoing UNC President Tom Ross says, the system’s continued eminence is at risk. The state is spending 14 percent less per degree, even as the system produces 18 percent more graduates than it did five years ago. It faces increasing difficulty retaining faculty and staff. And politics permeates the board room.
“We have to decide what kind of state we want to be,” Ross told a group of Charlotte businessmen on Tuesday. “Do we want to be a state that has an excellent system of higher education, as we have had, that is really the beacon for the country?
“It’s the best public university system in the United States. I think that’s still true. But we are teetering on the edge and we have to pay attention if we want to maintain it. The stakes are high.”
Last year, when the legislature granted nearly all state employees $1,000 pay hikes, UNC system faculty were left out. They ended up getting a little more than $200. The legislature floats bills that micromanage professors. And Gov. Pat McCrory and others have shown disdain for a liberal arts education.
“Right now our faculty doesn’t feel valued,” Ross said.
Blue NC has been all over the Duke Energy Coal Ash debacle. Every Wednesday they do an update on the issue.
Guilty....Of a heck of a lot more than a handful of misdemeanors and responsible for a great deal more in damage than $102 million, but at least it's a start in public efforts to reign in the monster known as Duke Energy. ABC News link to the story with a lot of background.
Coal Ash Wednesday: Muddying the causality water
Coal Ash Wednesday: 93% of tested wells contaminated
Brush strokes of the Duke Energy whitewash
This Week’s Top Five on NC Policy Watch
Budget wrangling, more on UNC and another fine look at the coal ash situation with Duke Energy.
"House leaders began unveiling pieces of their state budget proposal Thursday and as always it was a mixed bag. The budget finally provides more money for textbooks in public schools for example, while at the same time increasing funding for the completely unaccountable school voucher scheme that may be declared unconstitutional by the N.C. Supreme Court."