Choice we shouldn’t have to make

Last week staff writer and columnist Tim Chitwood reported on a kind of glitch, if you can call it that, in the primary system that could effectively disenfranchise some voters from having a say in important local races.

We’re well into early voting — in fact, there’s just a week of early voting left — for the May 24 primaries, so this is something voters need to be reminded about. And it’s an issue lawmakers need to look into, ideally before the next major round of elections in 2018.

To recap:

Voters, whether they cast early votes or not, need to choose a Democratic, Republican or nonpartisan ballot. Where the problem has arisen for many voters is that some major elections are decided in the party primaries when there is no opposite-party or independent opposition. If the voter has chosen the other party’s or a nonpartisan ballot, he or she cannot vote in those races.

As noted in Chitwood’s story, the elections for Municipal Court judge, Muscogee County marshal and the Superior Court and Municipal Court clerks will all be decided in the Democratic primary, as there are no Republican candidates in those races. So people who chose or will choose Republican or nonpartisan ballots have no say in those races.

This is not a local problem. Columbus Elections Director Nancy Boren has had sample ballots on display since before early voting began; and if voters with computer ballot cards don’t see the choices they want on the voting machine screen, they can stop before actually casting their vote and get a different ballot.

And of course, no matter what ballot a voter casts in May, the slate is clean for every voter in the November general election.

Certainly one way to improve this process would be for more of these races to be nonpartisan. Or perhaps nonpartisan and even other-party ballots should be counted in any races decided in the primaries. In any case, it’s a flawed system that forces primary voters to choose between participating in the decision-making process for their chosen party at the state and national levels, or for their own community at the local level.

Happy anniversary

It’s hard for some of us to believe the Phenix City Amphitheater has been here 20 years. Others have gotten so used to its place in the community it seems to have been there forever.

Either way, Staff writer Larry Gierer’s feature on the site’s 20th anniversary, which appears on ledger-enquirer.com, is a reminder of what an important local venue it has become.

Even a short list of nationally acclaimed performers who have entertained audiences on the Chattahoochee’s west bank would be an impressive bill. (Country star John Michael Montgomery is cued up for Saturday.)

But it has not been just a place to see stars — both the entertainment kind and the literal ones that sparkle over the water after night falls. The Phenix City Amphitheater has also hosted private, corporate and graduation ceremonies.

It’s a superb amenity sometimes left off lists of the community’s major attractions. It shouldn’t be.

This story was originally published May 12, 2016 at 4:28 PM with the headline "Choice we shouldn’t have to make."