What I’ve heard said about South Carolina weather can be said about an election result in Richland County — if you don’t like it now, wait a few minutes and it will change. (Actually, that weather saying makes more sense in a place like Kansas, but never mind.)
After a court ordered a recount last evening, after I put out my Virtual Front Page, this comes in this morning:
The South Carolina GOP plans to ask the S.C. Supreme Court on Friday morning to halt a recount of votes from Tuesday’s election from Richland County.
The state Election Commission said Thursday it would recount all votes in the county Friday after massive voting-machine problems.
At stake — for the parties — is the seesaw contest between Joe McCulloch and Kirkman Finlay III for the House District 75 seat.
At stake for the rest of us is the integrity, or lack thereof, of our elections.
Meanwhile, read Warren Bolton’s column this morning on some perspective on the county legislative delegation’s unanimous decision to replace an experienced director of elections with the woman who presided over Tuesday’s mess. An excerpt:
Yes, Lillian McBride and her staff are responsible for making elections run smoothly, something they failed miserably at on Tuesday. But make no mistake. The buck ultimately stops with Richland County legislators, some of whom have declared they’re going to get to the bottom of this mess in a hearing next week. I hope they’re prepared to look in the mirror.
After all, it was the county’s legislative delegation that voted unanimously last year to appoint Ms. McBride director of the newly merged Richland County Voter Registration office and the Election Commission.
Mike Cinnamon oversaw elections admirably for almost four decades, but the delegation hardly gave him the first look. In effect, it forced Mr. Cinnamon out the door and put someone in charge whose expertise was in making sure voters got registered, not ensuring they could vote in a timely manner. Mr. Cinnamon retired, taking his vast knowledge with him.
At the time, Sen. Darrell Jackson, who chairs the delegation, and Sen. John Courson said both candidates were qualified but that Mr. Cinnamon had garnered no support. Sen. Jackson went on to say that he supported Ms. McBride because he wanted someone who could serve long term and who had more supervisory experience. As director over voter registration, Ms. McBride oversaw seven full-time and five part-time employees, while Mr. Cinnamon had a one-person staff between elections.
But how do you usher out someone with such institutional knowledge and an admirable record of running elections without somehow making sure things can continue to operate well?
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While I agree with most of what Mr Bolton said, I still think Ms McBride is probably not skilled for the position she has (as well as possibly others involved), and they should be replaced with those who have the requisite skill sets.
Will John Courson take any blame for the fiasco?
It all smells real fishy…
This information from FitsNews cannot be ignored…
“Frank McBride – a former South Carolina lawmaker who pleaded guilty to selling his vote in 1991 as part of the infamous “Operation Lost Trust” scandal.
That’s right … McBride was at the heart of the biggest political scandal in South Carolina history (up to now). A guy who was indicted and pleaded guilty to selling his vote.
His current job? He’s a political hack pushing for the passage of the Richland County sales tax hike.
McBride is married to Jeannette McBride – Richland County’s Clerk of Court. He’s also related to Lillian McBride – the embattled elections director for Richland County.
For those of you unfamiliar with the back story, Lillian McBride assumed her post in July 2011 – shortly after Richland County’s powerful legislative delegation forced out longtime elections director Mike Cinnamon. Prior to his ouster, Cinnamon had spent three decades running fair, free and efficient elections in Richland County – although none of that mattered to local leaders. Clearly the integrity of the democratic process took a back seat when it came to passing the sales tax hike – hence the hiring of McBride.”
It’s nice to see that Richland County is getting their $90,000 worth out of Ms. McBride.
I don’t remember running into Frank McBride at any of the events connected to the sales tax referendum. At least, I never heard him introduced. I wouldn’t know him on sight.
In any case, I think what Warren is saying is that the delegation should be held accountable for this, because it’s a decision they made unanimously. John Courson is a member of the delegation.
And Susan, Warren was saying that Ms. McBride wasn’t qualified. And he blames the delegation for hiring her, and running off a qualified guy they already had on the payroll.
FitsNews has an interesting article today about Ms. McBride and her family’s political history.
http://www.fitsnews.com/2012/11/09/penny-tax-scam-meet-the-mcbrides/
It would be fun to hear the legal rationale the GOP is giving for stopping the recount.
Hey, maybe the whole slow-voter thing was part of Obama’s conspiracy to suppress the vote! Or have you not heard Karl Rove’s latest theory? Turns out the whole voter fraud thing was not about trying to get illegitimate voters TO the polls, but the real diabolical plan was to keep voters away! These evil Chicago geniuses will stop at nothing!
Actually, in his post-election column in the WSJ yesterday, Rove was almost a good sport about Obama’s victory.
Oh, he gets in quite a few digs, but there’s a healthy dose of the losing-coach tone of “Well, golly, the other fellas just went out and moved the football down the football field better than we did.”
At the end, he says he hoped the president will be successful — but ruins it by saying he’d have to be very different from the way he was in his first term to accomplish that.
Brad, you are way to charitable to Rove. He was a complete ass in his various comments regarding the election. The whole “voter suppression” comment was beyond the pale.
In Hawaii the lieutenant governors office is in charge of elections, no matter which party.
I like that the 15 member county legislative delegation appoints a 15 member commission to oversee elections and registrations – with none of the power of a board of directors to hire and fire the executive director.
There are 60 pointer fingers raised up to redirect the blame it seems (plus those of the hapless staffers); but 15 legislators ought to first look in the mirror. Talk about ad hoc political fratricide.
I hope that the Supreme Court will take this opportunity to stuff it to the Legislature as they did with the primary scandal. This fiasco is the perfect book-end to the primary melt-down.
Does the Court have the gumption to strike down the Legislature’s continued meddling in Home Rule? The opportunity doesn’t get much better than this to make a stand…
I hope ballots will be checked and scrutinized by a non partisan, competent person or committee. What on earth is the GOP afraid of in an honest recount?
bud – If Karl Rove was a Democrat and lost and made the same statement you’d be gushing all over the place talking about how he’s a good loser and that people should use him as an example. You bash him simply because of his party alliance, nothing more… and if I’m on to you, I’m sure everyone else is too.
Lots of people are bashing Rove, for many sins, including storming off the Fox News set when they called
Ohio for Obama, and for being way off the mark a lot of the time. Not so much evil genius as evil.
Did he storm off in Ed Schultz fashion… you know, screaming that he was going to burn the place down and all?
Has Ed Schultz actually done that?
Regardless of where you want to place direct blame for this fiasco, Lillian McBride must resign from her position. She absolutely MUST resign. She is not qualified and anyone loosely connected to or related to someone convicted of selling their VOTE shouldn’t be allowed to preside over the Board of Elections. Period the end.
Richland County is to South Carolina as Florida is to the nation. Neither can run an election!
I don’t believe anyone should be tarred with anyone else’s misdeeds, even if it is a McBride. I do think Lillian McBride has shown herself to be personally incompetent.
Professor Duncan Buell has repeatedly offered his assistance and been ignored. It’s the same willful ignorance that Haley showed with the DOR hacking. Don’t ask for expert assistance; just stonewall.
@Burl – Yes. I remember seeing the video which I can’t find now. He got mad at something and then screamed he was going to burn the f’ing building down. He was suspended for the tantrum and later apologized (like he had any other choice).
Brad,
I was really responding to the last lines in his column:
“As for whether Ms. McBride will survive it all: I’m confident that if she does, this will never happen again. But you can’t help but wonder whether this was so colossal that she won’t get another chance.”
I felt like in how Warren finished his column, he left room for her staying in the position, in a sort of “she learned her lesson, I’m sure it won’t happen again” sort of way, which I don’t think would be wise to do.
http://www.mediaite.com/online/ed-schultz-wants-to-be-in-msnbc-promos-or-hell-torch-this-fcking-place/
———-
MSNBC talk show screamer Ed Schultz had a meltdown in the network’s 30 Rock newsroom, shouting at staff, “I’m going to torch this [bleep]ing place.”
The hot-tempered anchor of “The Ed Show” lost it during a phone call in the packed studio and slammed down the phone before exploding.
As astonished MSNBC staff members fell silent, Schultz glared around the room and yelled, “[Bleep]ers!”
A witness told us, “Ed was furious the network was running election-night promos and he wasn’t in them. He’d been arguing on the phone with marketing, then he slammed down the phone and exploded. It was like Mel Gibson had entered the newsroom.”
Oh, I see, Susan.
Kathryn Fenner: Please review the video tapes of Lillian addressing the issue. Blaming the voters, then the past director…not personally incompetent. Competent people don’t play blame the victim or I’m the victim.
Yes she has Peter Principled. She needs to do the honorable thing accept responsibility for the mess and resign. She assured the Election Commission prior to Election Day her office was prepared and clearly IT WAS NOT!
Unlike most of the county’s other 1,700-plus employees, McBride has no immediate supervisor and can’t be fired or demoted by county officials.
http://www.thestate.com/2012/11/13/2517597/richland-election-chief.html#.UKI_oo5j7zI#storylink=cpy
Seems like a perfectly good system to me.
In The State this morning, they had this quote from Darrell Jackson, part of Richland County’s Legislative Delegation:
Jackson said he, too, wants to hear from McBride about what happened.
And, he said he is inclined to give McBride a second chance to straighten things out.
“Our job now is to fix it and make sure it doesn’t happen again,” Jackson said.
You just can’t reward incompetence like that and expect to get excellence as a result. A $90K position is not a place to learn, it’s a place to provide expertise. Totally unacceptable.
Lillian McBride was Peter principled to the point of incompetence. Yes, she as incompetent to fulfill the supervisory tasks she was appointed to fill.
Just as Nikki Haley is incompetent in ensuring that basic security protocols are followed with our personal information, Lillian McBride failed to count how many machines were required by law to be at each voting place, and ensure that that many WORKING machines were there. Today’s paper has a handy chart on the shortfalls. A 10.
The argument that it’s just too complicated and sophisticated for the leaders to comprehend is ridiculous! I don’t expect the CEO of an airline to know how a plane works, but I do expect him (her? Ha!) to know how to ensure that someone who does know is in charge of maintenance. Failing to do so is personal incompetence as a leader.
Well, the story that chart went with certainly makes it seem that she was more interested in padding her payroll than in making sure there were enough working voting machines.
Here’s that story…
@ Kathryn – Peter principled? What did she do before she was Elections Director? Did she work her way up the ladder in the elections office?
Brad if you want a more thorough view, FitsNews has an article entitled “Meet the McBrides”. The whole family reeks of corruption.
http://www.fitsnews.com/2012/11/09/penny-tax-scam-meet-the-mcbrides/
She was in charge of voter registration. They combined that with elections, fired the long time head of elections and put elections under McBride.
The McBride family has, um, a colorful political past, with some less than upright overtones.
Not that I am saying, necessarily, that patronage was involved in the decision. No, I would not say that.