This May’s primary election ballot likely will be somewhat confusing in most counties, due to large numbers of candidates seeking party nominations for school boards, municipal government seats, tax collector positions and judgeships. In Lackawanna County that likely will be compounded by at least one but, probably, two referendums on the structure of the county government. One, approved by the county commissioners, will ask voters if they approve consolidating the recorder of deeds, clerk of judicial records and register of wills offices into a single office, and converting the sheriff’s job from an elected to an appointed position. Since it is unknown how voters will respond, candidates will seek nominations for the deeds and wills offices and sheriff’s office, in case voters decide to retain the current system. (The clerk of courts position is not on the ballot until 2014.)
A petition drive is under way to put on the ballot another referendum, to empanel a home rule study commission that would examine whether to change the county’s form of government.
That is a full plate for voters that, inevitably, will cause some confusion. The last thing that voters or the system need is a complicated process.
But, unless the courts or the other two branches of the state government act soon, more confusion will be inevitable.
Last year the Commonwealth Court approved an injunction against enforcement of the state’s wrongheaded, politically motivated voter identification law. The administration failed to demonstrate the law would not disenfranchise thousands of voters, after challenges demonstrated that the law could do just that.
Full Article: Extend hold on voter ID – Opinion – The Times-Tribune.