Saturday, Nov. 07, 2009

Modern Carpet-bagging

This week's electoral debacle in Atlantic Beach proves that the tiny town's longstanding tradition of employing a "transient electorate" to decide elections is still alive and thriving, though its practice has changed hands. In fact, the transients are no longer just the voters - they're the candidates, and the winning ones at that.

For years, the town's voter rolls have swollen with the names of dozens of people who have stopped at the town's various motels and taken a sudden interest in local politics - the address of the Woods Apartments, owned by the family of former mayor Irene Armstrong and current Councilman Jake Evans, for example, is used by nearly 60 mostly-inactive voters who have passed through town. This election again saw a surfeit of new voters without any noticeable increase in the town's population, leading this week to nearly 40 challenged ballots - many of which had addresses at the motels run by allies of suspended Mayor Retha Pierce.

The latest twist is that the two write-in candidates who gathered enough ballots to oust incumbents Charlene Taylor and Josephine Isom (longtime town residents both) now seem to share the transitory nature of the voters who elected them. The Rev. Windy Price, a longtime North Myrtle Beach resident pastoring a church in Atlantic Beach, changed her voting address to that of Mayor Pierce's home about a month before the Oct. 2 deadline, according to county records. Carolyn Cole, the former Atlantic Beach town manager who until very recently lived in Florida, did so on the actual day of the deadline, registering along with Price's husband and 15 other new voters living at local motels.

Cole explained Thursday to the town Election Commission that after divorcing her husband in Florida she had wanted to move into her own property in Atlantic Beach, but conflicts with the town over permission to remodel it led both her and Price - and Price's husband - to move into Pierce's small house, an arrangement she admitted is "not comfortable." Price, too, insisted that though she maintains her former residence in North Myrtle Beach, Pierce's house is now her home.

The concept of two people sweeping into any town and suddenly taking over its government is certainly galling, but not necessarily illegal. Candidates must be residents of a place for only 30 days prior to an election, and state law weakly defines a person's residence as the place "where he has an intention of returning when he is absent." Distasteful as their decision may be, the Election Commission may have been technically correct in judging these two women 'residents' of Atlantic Beach, based on the evidence they had.

Little was done, however, to probe beyond the surface of the Price's and Cole's assertions that they do, in fact, all live with Pierce. Frankly, the notion of four adults sharing such cramped quarters instead of so many other readily accessible options (i.e., their other local properties) is tough to swallow.

When the Election Commission hears the incumbents' protest hearing today, we hope they will do their best to determine the basic truth of that statement before blindly handing such a historic, important and yet fragile town to two people whose primary reason for being there appears to be gaining control of it.