Blake Aued Joins Flagpole

Athens Banner-Herald government reporter Blake Aued will be joining Flagpole July 2 as City Editor, replacing Dave Marr, who has taken a job with UGA’s Willson Center. Blake has seven years’ experience covering local government for the Athens daily and has earned a statewide reputation as an energetic and perceptive reporter. We’re delighted that he is coming to work at Flagpole, and we anticipate that he will enhance the breadth and timeliness of Flagpole’s political and governmental coverage, both in the paper and online.

Read This Carefully

Being mad as hell is not enough: you’ve got to be in the right district. You may be, for instance, mad as hell at Rep. Doug McKillip, but you can’t vote against him unless you vote in State Representative District 117. The Athens-Clarke County part of that district is composed of specific voting precincts: 6A, 6B, 6C, 6D, most of 7A, all of 7B, all of 3A and a portion of 4B (that portion where McKillip lives).

It’s the same for District 118, where to vote against Rep. Keith Heard you’ve got to vote in specific precincts within the district. If you want to vote against Rep. Chuck Williams in District 119, you’re out of luck, because nobody ran against him.

But most of us don’t know which district we live in; how are we going to know which precinct is ours? For starters, we can go to our excellent local government web site, www.athensclarkecounty.com, and find the Board of Elections in the departments. Once you’re on the Board of Elections site, you’ll see the listing “Maps—2012 Approved” in the lefthand column. You can examine the legislative districts map, the commission map, the school board and the congressional map to pinpoint which district you live in for each purpose.

We all live in different districts for different purposes. Would you believe that as a result of all the redistricting thrust upon us, plus the insanity of having different commission and school board districts, the Board of Elections has had to print 189 different ballots!

But with all that, each of us is still in the same precinct we’ve been in, and we all still vote at our same polling place. The unsung heroines of this election are the people at the Board of Elections. They have taken all the political changes thrown at them, and with cool professionalism they have kept it all straight, with their computers, their late-night work and sometimes by going out and driving the neighborhoods to see just what streets are where.

And they’re coming to our aid again. Watch your mailbox for a yellow postcard from the Board of Elections. It will remind you where you vote, which precinct is yours, and which district you are in for each election. Coming soon to your mailbox.

And it can’t be too soon. Mail-out voting began June 16. The deadline for voter registration is July 2. (The Board office is open until 6 p.m. that day.) Advance voting (at the Board office) starts July 9, and the primary election (at your usual polling place) is July 31.

One more thing: if you go to vote, and you want to get frisky and cross party lines, but you find out that McKillip is not on your ballot, all is not lost. If you think you have the wrong ballot, you can ask for help at any time during the voting process until you have actually recorded your ballot. Poll workers will be standing by.

Oh yes, remember that our two contested ACC Commission races—in District 4 and District 6—are non-partisan, so whether you vote Republican or Democratic, those races will be on your ballot if you’re in Commission Districts 4 or 6.

So, let’s just say that you’re a Democrat, and you’re mad as hell at Doug McKillip for switching parties, passing a draconian abortion bill, forcing the redistricting of our local government, ripping up his legislative district to make it safe for him, getting in bed with the right-wing Republicans in Atlanta, etc. You don’t have an easy choice, because Doug’s Republican opponent, Regina Quick, is probably even more conservative than Doug, and you would surely characterize her as a right-wing Republican. (Is there any other kind these days?)

So, your choice is difficult morally but easy technically. If you live in HR District 117 in Athens-Clarke County, and you’re a Democrat, you simply ask for a Republican ballot. You don’t miss any Democratic votes, because there are no Democrats on your ballot. The ACC Commission candidates are on your Republican ballot or your Democratic ballot. Plus, if you vote the Republican ballot, since you are also in the 10th Congressional District, you get the added bonus of voting against Congressman Paul Broun.

How sweet it is!

Pete McCommons [email protected]