"The Others"
When early voting starts tomorrow, there will be a lot of other names on the primary ballots. You know, people running for other offices besides president. They are people we've neglected lately, ever since the presidential nomination stampede headed to our hood. So let's give a little love to the Travis County Tax Assessor-Collector race in the D primary.
Incumbent Nelda Wells-Spears has headed the office (which oversees elections) for 16 years. Challenger, former State Rep Glen Maxey, says she's not doing her job very well. He found evidence of thousands of voters being accidentally purged from Travis Co. voter rolls and says Spears didn't do enough to try and find them and get them registered again. Spears says the problem is exaggerated, and the office did reach out to all of the purged voters.
Last week, Maxey got loaded up with new ammo against Spears, when she (a Democrat) actually came out in favor of some form of Voter IDrequirements, which Democrats all over the state (and country) have been fighting against mightily. They say Voter ID measures would dispropotionately disenfranchise minority, poor and elderly voters.
You may have seen one or both candidates on Central Texas airwaves. Maxey fired the first shot, below, and Spears recently responded with a softer touch.
Random Trivia: I just noticed on Spears' website that her campaign slogan is "steady leadership in changing times". I was bored last night watched campaign commercials from elections past, and "steady leadership in changing times" was the catchphrase employed by President George W Bush's 2004 re-election campaign.
Comments
What Maxey's ads do not mention is that Spears supported a proof of CITIZENSHIP requirement, not a proof of IDENTITY requirement. Nobody supports allowing non-citizens to vote, not even Glen Maxey.
And many advocates who've been fighting the voter ID battle for longer than six months also support proof of citizenship requirements, if only to concede what ought to be common ground and diffuse accusations that voter ID opponents want non-citizens to vote.
Posted by: Bodhisattva | February 18, 2008 7:43 PM