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EDITOR IN CHIEF
Sarah Kickler
EDITORIAL EDITOR
Mike Schmierbach
NIGHT EDITOR
Mike Schmierbach
Make the mailbox a ballot box
AN EMERALD EDITORIAL
Tuesday’s
election
demonstrates
the cost and
inconvenience
of a polling
place election
Remember election day? Sitting
around the television, watching
results come in, cheering when
the right candidates won, booing
when they didn’t? Little graphics that ap
peared at the bottom of the screen, telling
you that, with 70 or 80 percent of the
precincts reporting in, so-and-so was the
next such-and-such?
None of that made a regular appearance
Tuesday evening. Granted, it was only a
primary. Granted, most of the “important”
races were uncontested, and there was only
one statewide ballot measure. Granted,
people just don’t care about the process
like they ought to.
Nevertheless, the biggest reason is that
this election was “a dysfunctional, costly
mess,” according to a quote from Secretary
of State Phil Keisling in Wednesday’s Reg
ister-Guard.
Although it was officially a traditional
polling-place election, more than 60 per
cent of ballots cast in the primary were sent
in by mail, according to The Register
Guard. In order to ensure people didn’t
vote twice (by mail and at the polls), coun
ty elections officials didn’t start counting
absentee ballots until they had recorded all
non-mail votes.
This left candidates, reporters and politi
cal observers wondering just what had hap
pened. While some races were obvious,
most close contests remained unresolved
well into Wednesday.
It also left state elections officials stag
gered by the cost of the whole affair, de
spite the fact that turnout was near a record
low. According to The Register-Guard,
Keisling reports that the $4 million price
tag was more than twice what a purely
vote-by-mail election would have cost.
The solution should be obvious. A vote
by-mail only election would have eliminat
ed confusion — thereby increasing turnout
— and lowered the cost of the election. It
would also have allowed workers to begin
counting the ballots earlier, meaning can
didates and the public would have a clear
idea of who won and lost on the night of
the election.
Keisling has long been an advocate of
mail-in elections. Despite his position
and the clear practical reason for going to
vote-by-mail, Republican legislators
worked to block a proposal to make the
switch during the 1997 state Legislature
session.
All the blame doesn’t rest with the
GOP, however. According to The Regis
ter-Guard, Gov. Kitzhaber vetoed a vote
by-mail bill that was passed two years
earlier.
It doesn’t make sense. In another Keis
ling quote from The Register-Guard, he
sums up the absurdity of continuing
polling place elections nicely: “It’s irra
tional and absurd to have this hybrid sys
tem.”
Another opportunity for change is com
ing up. Keisling and the League of
Women Voters are collecting signatures
to place a measure on the November bal
lot that would mandate vote-by-mail elec
tions.
Unfortunately, according to a Register
Guard editorial, this effort has collected
less than half the 73,600 signatures needed
to place the measure on the fall ballot. This
is due in part to the coalition’s refusal to
use paid signature gatherers — an ad
mirable stance.
The group is looking for citizens to help
gather signatures in time to make the July 2
deadline. Students interested in the politi
cal process should consider helping; the
group can be contacted toll-free at 1-877
868-3826.
At the very least, registered Oregon vot
ers should add their own names to the
stack of signatures. The money needed to
run a more expensive election is your mon
ey, and the cost of voter apathy is a less ef
fective system.
This editorial represents the opinion of the Emer
ald editorial board. Responses may be sent to
ode@oregon.uoregon.edu.
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LETTERS TO THE EOJTOR
Hallelujah Herald
Editor and publisher Tony Baker calls his news
paper The Register-Guard. Some Lane County
freethinkers wryly refer to the lopsidedly evange
listic diurnal as the Hallelujah Herald. This sobri
quet has its genesis not only in the plethora of
front-page opinion pieces authored by piety pro
moter Jeff Wright, but also in clericalist editorials
such as the one titled “Good ruling on scouts” that
aptly appeared on April Fool’s Day.
The Register-Guard, to use Baker’s appellation,
contends that deputy superintendent of public in
struction Greg McMurdo is correct in viewing the
Boy Scouts of America as essentially secular de
spite the fact that the youth organization’s leaders
— through blackballing and expulsion — preach
intolerance for all who are not heterosexual ad
herents to a theistic religion. Eugene’s daily news
paper thereby encourages the state Department of
Education to bulldoze a gaping hole in the First
Amendment by continuing to allow the BSA to
use the public schools for recruitment campaigns
that inevitably result in the indoctrination of
youngsters with fundamentalist bigotry.
While defending McMurdo’s flawed interpreta
tion of church-state separation, the intrepid pal
adins on The Register-Guard’s editorial board of
fer absolutely no opinion about the ethicality of
the Boy Scouts’ discriminatory practices, which
are clearly based on religious dogma.
A newspaper does not take a stand by burying
its masthead in the sands of tacit approval. If The
Register-Guard supports the BSA’s brainwashing
of Oregon schoolchildren with intolerance for
non-theistic Theravada Buddhists, agnostics, sec
ular humanists, gays, lesbians, bisexuals and other
minorities, the publication should speak out and
say so.
Ron Black
Junction City
Change rape education
Throughout this school year, I have watched the
blundering of various women’s services on cam
pus, hoping that eventually they would stumble
onto a rational path. However, May 18’s display
of deep and meaningful T-shirts convinced me
that they really have gone off the deep end. The
techniques of the Women’s Center and its affili
ates portray women as victims and men as a
malevolent race, some of whom can be acceptable
after they have been properly trained.
I find these ideas offensive and incorrect. Rape
is an extremely traumatizing experience, and be
cause of this, the causes of rape need to be identi
fied, and all women should be able to defend
themselves and, if assaulted, go immediately to
the police, prosecute the male and begin the heal
ing process. All this is a given, but like any other
shattering experience, after a certain point life
must go on and wallowing is counter-productive.
Judging from reactions I have seen and heard,
your manner of dealing with the issue is off
putting at least.
Nowhere have I seen an ad for a forum dealing
with why rape and sexual assault occurs, and in
terestingly enough I have never seen a workshop
or anything else for women who falsely accuse
men of rape. This occurs frequently and is just as
psychologically damaging to men as the act of
rape is to women. How do you expect to empower
women and gain respect if you cannot even allow
for the possibility that men are not beasts? The
message you are sending right now is that women
are victims and men are evil, and this is demoral
izing to the student body. I would suggest rethink
ing your tactics, since no one could find fault with
your cause.
Kate Queary
History
Thumbs
To Take Back
ihe Night:
The idea behind
this event is ad
mirable and the for
mat necessary.
While it isn't true for
all women at all
times, many women
often feel afraid to
be out alone at
night. No one
should have to re
strict their activities
out of fear. Take
Back the Night,
which will gather
between 6:45 p.m.
and 9 p,m. tonight
in the EMU Am
phitheater, is an op
portunity to protest
that fear. Therefore,
it makes sense that
the event require
men interested In
supporting the
movement to march
separately from
women—anything
else would miss the
point. Women
should be able to
walk on their own;
an effective protest
thus involves
women marching
on their own.
To Oliver North:
North compared
Oregon and its le
galization of assist
ed suicide to Nazi
euthanasia prac
tices twice during a
speech. This is trou
blesome for two
reasons. For one
thing, Oregon’s law
doesn’t allow eu
thanasia, in which a
doctor actively ends
toetlfeofaterminal
ly ill patient, in
stead, assisted sui
cide requires a
patient to take the
fatai dose of med
ication. Additionally,
the comparison is
insuiting to Oregon
voters and offensive
to those who sur
vived Nazi Ger
many. it has be
comefartoo
common for politi
cians and activists
to rely upon com
parisons to Nazi
practices, which has
toe effect of dulling
people’s sense of
how horrific toe ac
tual events of Worid
War II and toe Holo
caust were.