Guilford Co. voters say ballot cast for Romney came up Obama on machine

MyFox8

Scott Gustin
Brandon Jones
Charlie Glancy


GREENSBORO, N.C. –The presidential election is just around the corner and voting issues have already become a problem in Guilford County.

On Monday, several voters complained that their electronic ballot machine cast the wrong vote. All the complaints were made by people who voted at the Bur-Mil Park polling location.

One of the voters, Sher Coromalis, says she cast her ballot for Governor Mitt Romney, but every time she entered her vote the machine defaulted to President Obama.

“I was so upset that this could happen,” said Coromalis. Guilford County Board of Elections Director George Gilbert says the problem arises every election. It can be resolved after the machine is re-calibrated by poll workers.

“It’s not a conspiracy it’s just a machine that needs to be corrected,” Gilbert said.

After the third try, Coromalis says she was able to get her vote counted for Gov. Romney but was still annoyed.

“I should have just mailed it in,” Coromalis said. Marie Haydock, who also voted at the Bur-Mil Park polling location, had the same problem.

“The frustration is… every vote counts,” said Haydock. Elections officials say the machines have been fixed as of Tuesday, and no problems have been reported since.

Early voting ends November 3.

Dozens Imprisoned for Violating Non-Existent Federal Gun Control Law

News Worldwide

ELIZABETHTOWN, N.C. – Terrell McCullum did not commit a federal crime by carrying a shotgun and a rifle out of his ex-girlfriend’s house.

But he is serving a federal prison sentence for it. And the fact that everyone — including the U.S.Justice Department— agrees that he is legally innocent might not be enough to set him free.

• INTERACTIVE: The case of Terrell McCullum

A USA TODAY investigation, based on court records and interviews with government officials and attorneys, found more than 60 men who went to prison for violating federal gun possession laws, even though courts have since determined that it was not a federal crime for them to have a gun.

Many of them don’t even know they’re innocent.

The legal issues underlying their situation are complicated, and are unique to North Carolina. But the bottom line is that each of them went to prison for breaking a law that makes it a federal crime for convicted felons to possess a gun. The problem is that none of them had criminal records serious enough to make them felons under federal law.

Still, the Justice Department has not attempted to identify the men, has made no effort to notify them, and, in a few cases in which the men have come forward on their own, has argued in court that they should not be released.

Justice Department officials said it is not their job to notify prisoners that they might be incarcerated for something that they now concede is not a crime. And although they have agreed in court filings that the men are innocent, they said they must still comply with federal laws that put strict limits on when and how people can challenge their convictions in court.

“We can’t be outcome driven,” said Anne Tompkins, the U.S. attorney in Charlotte. “We’ve got to make sure we follow the law, and people should want us to do that.” She said her office is “looking diligently for ways, within the confines of the law, to recommend relief for defendants who are legally innocent.”

These cases are largely unknown outside the courthouses here, but they have raised difficult questions about what, if anything, the government owes to innocent people locked in prisons.

“It’s been tough,” said Ripley Rand, the U.S. attorney in Greensboro, N.C. “We’ve spent a lot of time talking about issues of fundamental fairness, and what is justice.”

It’s also unusual. Wrongful conviction cases are seldom open-and-shut — usually they depend on DNA or other new evidence that undermines the government’s case, but does not always prove someone is innocent. Yet in the North Carolina gun cases, it turns out, there simply were no federal crimes.

Using state and federal court records, USA TODAY identified 23 other men who had been sent to federal prison for having a firearm despite criminal records too minor to make that a federal crime. Nine of them remain in prison, serving sentences of up to 10 years; others are still serving federal probation. The newspaper’s review was limited to only a small fraction of cases from one of the three federal court districts in North Carolina.

Woman Sterilized Against Her Will Awaits Reparations

Jezebel

In 1968, Elaine Riddick was sterilized against her will after a c-section to deliver her first and only child. She was just fourteen years old. Now she's fighting to receive compensation as a victim of North Carolina's Eugenics Board, which sterilized thousands of women, disproportionately black, on such grounds as "feeblemindedness."

Riddick's story — told by the AP — is heartbreaking. She was raised in an abusive home in a dangerous neighborhood, and was raped at the age of thirteen. She became pregnant, and the Board evaluated her for sterilization. Despite reports that she did well in school and would "perform more adequately in an improved environment," she was judged "feebleminded." The final doctor's report on her case is chilling:

Because of Elaine's inability to control herself, and her promiscuity — there are community reports of her 'running around' and out late at night unchaperoned, the physician has advised sterilization. This will at least prevent additional children from being born to this girl who cannot care for herself, and can never function in any way as a parent.

The state of North Carolina apparently judged rape as evidence of promiscuity, and promiscuity as a reason for sterilization — but as Riddick says above, their underlying reason may have been racism. By 1968, 64% of the people recommended for sterilization by the Board were black women and girls. Riddick filed a lawsuit against the Board in 1974 — it was ultimately unsuccessful. But now, a task force has been created to deliver appropriate reparations to Riddick and other sterilization victims. This month, it recommended that North Carolina turn over "lump sum financial damages." Its report said,

For many citizens, it may be hard to justify spending millions when the state is cutting back on other essential services. But the fact is, there never will be a good time to redress these wrongs and the victims have already waited too long.

The task force will deliver a final report in February — hopefully then Riddick will receive the apology and compensation that are painfully overdue.

Woman Fights For Compensation For Forced Sterilization In 1968 By North Carolina [AP]

Dark Past: Michigan sterilized more than 3,000 people from early 1900s to 1970s

MLive
Lindsay Knake

While North Carolina is reliving some of its dark history, Michigan is not without its own.

Michigan was among the 35 states that allowed sterilization of people considered unfit to reproduce.

The stories of dozens North Carolina victims are coming to national prominence after people came forward to speak at a public hearing seeking compensation.

According to The Wall Street Journal, the North Carolina government has a legislative proposal to compensate sterilized people with $20,000 each.

Victims have said they were lied to about the procedure. About 7,600 people in North Carolina were sterilized over five decades, and about 3,000 of those people are still alive, according to CNN.

Michigan shares in the eugenics horror often associated with Nazis, as more than 3,000 residents were involuntarily sterilized, according to a January 2009 document from the Michigan Supreme Court Historical Society.

Eugenics is the process of selectively breeding humans and animals to get rid of undesirable characteristics.