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Saving money poor reason to take away chance to vote

State law change at odds with right to cast ballot

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There is something fundamentally wrong when someone can be elected to public office without a single vote cast.

That's the case in the Town of Hilton Head Island's council election Nov. 8. Three sitting council members have no opposition, so their names will not be on the ballot. The only reason for most people to go to the polls -- and it's a very good one -- is that Mayor Tom Peeples faces challenger Jim Campbell for the mayor's seat. Ballots in the Hilton Head Public Service District also will have two candidates for the District 4 commissioner seat.

A change in state election law two years ago says unopposed candidates in municipal elections and special elections to fill a statewide seat are automatically elected, without even a vote. And it does not allow for write-in candidates to challenge the unopposed seats unless they formally file a write-in campaign two weeks before the election.

Hilton Head officials asked that the three council members, John Safay, George Williams and Bill Mottel, be put on the ballot despite the law and were told no.

Why pass such a law? To save time and money, election officials said. Asked if saving money trumps Hilton Head officials' concerns about not having names on the ballot, Beaufort County elections director Agnes Garvin said, "That is correct."

How about the premise that voters should be able to express what they think of the candidates who have stood up for office? Why shouldn't we able to make a statement by not voting for a particular candidate or writing in another choice?

Who among us at some point in their voting career has not written in a name -- your spouse, the neighbor down the street, Mickey Mouse -- to tell someone, somewhere you didn't want that choice on the ballot?

League of Women Voters president Joan Kinne-Shulman is right when she says, "If there are 50 voters in a precinct and only 25 vote for an individual, it tells that individual something, I think."

Changes in state election law are not well advertised. They've even caught county officials flat-footed. In 2001, an effort to get Sunday alcohol sales in the unincorporated parts of the county was derailed when it was pointed out that election law required such a referendum to be held in a general election year. Organizers of the effort had been told the question would be on the ballot of a special election to fill the House seat left vacant by the death of U.S. Rep. Floyd Spence.

But the law had changed in June 2000. Neither county election officials nor the county's then lawyer picked up on the change.

And they expect would-be write-in candidates to know what to do? When are election officials at the state and local levels going to start being proactive about letting us know when election law changes?

The change in the requirements for a write-in candidate are wrong for another reason. Requiring someone to declare their intentions within two weeks of the election does not allow for voters or potential candidates to take into account anything that comes up late in a campaign. The filing deadline for Hilton Head Town Council seats this year was Sept. 1. In a two-month campaign, two weeks is a long time.

It's bad enough we don't get enough candidates filing for office so that we have some choices to make. Now we get no say at all.

And they wonder why people don't show up to vote anymore.