Politics from the Palouse to Puget Sound

Thursday, September 14, 2006

My Letter to the Editor

How come there has not been this large of a number of letters to the editor about the Auditors office of Whitman County until this year’s election? It seems like a vocal minority is trying to make Eunice Coker out to be a partisan politician.

People are looking for anything and everything they can find, and then they quickly compose a letter to the editor for the world to see how Ms. Coker is out to get them.

In a recent letter Marshall Mitchell claims that Ms. Coker "has not complied with federal law by including nothing in the ballot information about voting accessibility."

However, after reviewing the Help America Vote Act, I could not find where the information about how to access alternative voting means was to be included with the ballot. Specifically it says "...information about the accessibility of polling places, including outreach programs to inform the individuals about the availability of accessible polling places."

I will agree that one possible way to do this outreach is to include information in every ballot, but it is not part of the law.

Secondly, I don’t believe that Mr. Mitchell is correct in stating that the reason the County went to all mail-in voting is because of the need to have ADA-compliant voting machines. I believe that if Mr. Mitchell had contacted the elections office, he would have found out where the ADA voting machines are located, thus solving his problem.

This has been the case with many of the letters to the editor I have seen. The sad part of this letter writing campaign is to help get Ms. Coker's opponent elected. In this case, because Ms. Coker is heads and shoulders above her opponent in qualifications, they can not write letters with good reasons to support Ms. Coker's opponent. Instead their tactic is to degrade Ms. Coker and hope that the voters will vote for "anyone but her".

1 comment:

April E. Coggins said...

Scotty: Great letter. This was in the Daily News on Sept. 7th:

"Macoll and Kiessling also raised questions about access for people with disabilities. Voting machines that are accessible to people with all types of disabilities will be available at Pullman City Hall and the commissioner’s chambers at the county courthouse on election day,, Coker said."

I have also seen the info in other articles and news releases. I am not disabled and yet I knew where the disabled could vote. Wouldn't you think a disabled person would be motivated enough to try to find out the info instead of demanding that they each be personally notified? You are right on the money that some are trying to find any fault, no matter how trivial or easily corrected, to smear Eunice Coker in the newspaper.