Buffer brouhaha:

Election board considers

ASU campaign zone
By Scott Nicholson

Sometimes the letter of the law is missing a few words.

The Watauga County Board of Elections met Thursday morning to address interpretations of a buffer zone that prohibits campaigning or distributing materials within 50 feet of a poll.

The question arose because of a one-stop voting site in the Plemmons Student Union on the Appalachian State University campus.

Campus officials wanted to allow campaign-related material to be within the 50-foot zone to allow access by students — specifically two bulletin boards that allow students to share information about the presidential candidates.

Board chairwoman Stella Anderson said the board had the authority and responsibility to make an interpretation on the buffer zones, though the board ended up seeing two different versions of the statute regulating the buffers.

She made a motion to define the “voting place” as a specific area in Room 112 in the student union, with doorways at both ends of the hallway. She proposed making the buffer zone 25 feet from each door of the hall.

Board member Stacy “Four” Eggers IV said during state training, board members were told the interpretation should be 50 feet from the outside door of the building in its entirety. The site has several different entrances.

Anderson said, for the student union, the board should establish the “appropriate area” that is easily defined and identified, which could be the hallway.

One definition reviewed by the board said “door or area,” while another referred only to the “door” of the voting enclosure. The elections board was working from regulations printed in 2007, while county attorney Andrea Capua had researched the statute through an online legal resource updated this year.

Capua said her definition was that the buffer zone should be measured by the front door, though there was some concern over which of two statutes were the most recent. Capua said based on the interpretation of the latest statute she had, she would legally define the 50 feet as being measured from each door.

Capua said she could only render an opinion, and it would be the board’s choice to accept it.

“If you add the word ‘area,’ I’m not prepared to answer that question,” she said.

Board member Rusty Henson said it would be difficult to police the many entrances at the student union and keep people from campaigning.

Anderson believed the local board had the authority to establish the buffer zones, and if the statute “simply said ‘building,’ we wouldn’t be here and there would be no argument.”

Eggers said people still had access to vote, but it was simply a matter of where “electioneering” was allowed.

Eggers also wondered why the interpretation was being made in special meetings instead of well in advance of elections.

Anderson said new one-stop sites had been added and the problems weren’t known until the voting started.

Eggers responded that the student union had been used as a poll before “and we’re changing rules in midstream.”

The board also discussed whether the State Board of Elections had rendered a clear opinion on the statute, and whether the state’s interpretation was based on the existing book.

Anderson said, “Most of the time it’s not an issue because we’re dealing with one building and not one with multiple facilities within the building.”

During the meeting, elections director Jane Hodges called Bob Joyce of the Institute for Government for an interpretation of the statute. Joyce said the 2008 bound versions of the elections law didn’t include the word “area,” though there was no note of when the law was amended.

In 2001, when the law was enacted, it didn’t have the words “or area.” A later session law added that language, but it failed to be entered in the statute language, suggesting there was room for interpretation.

State elections board attorney Don Wright reviewed the statute and said, “Even the General Assembly Web site has the law wrong.” He said the general practice and interpretation of the statute had been to measure the buffer from the front door of a building because otherwise people tended to campaign in halls and disrupt the functioning of some public places.

Wright said, “We really don’t see where the Watauga County government comes in and interprets the statute.”
Hodges said elections workers are trained to interpret “voting place” as the entire building and “voting enclosure” as the specific polling room.

“This has resulted in something good, and we’re now aware there’s an error to be corrected,” Wright said.

Capua said she would recommend the board be consistent with state policy. The board recessed until later Thursday for an interpretation, with results unavailable by press time.

About 900 people per day have been voting at the ASU site, with Hodges reporting steady activity but no waiting lines.

She said the office may need more staff members at some of the one-stop voting sites since turnout has been higher than expected. She estimated 15,000 people would vote during the one-stop period that ends Nov. 1, with an estimated 30,000 expected to vote before Election Day on Nov. 4.

Hodges said the elections office was busy dealing with mail-in absentee ballots, phone calls and registration questions, even while one-stop voting increased.

She said the office might have to request more county funding for one-stop poll workers, especially during lunch hours when more people tend to vote. New voters are also registering on-site, with more than 40 registering in a single day Wednesday.