October 09, 2008 09:52 pm
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By Susan Redden
sredden@joplinglobe.com
CARTHAGE, Mo. — Sample ballots containing the issues to be decided in the Nov. 4 election are being distributed in Jasper County to allow voters to study the measures before they go to the polls, Bonnie Earl, county clerk, said Thursday.
Earl is getting the information out in an attempt to head off what could be a “perfect storm” for voting delays in the general election.
The ballot is long, some of the questions are complicated and a big turnout is expected, she told members of the Jasper County Commission in their general session.
“We’re seeing absentee voters in record numbers,” Earl said. “We know it’s going to be a big turnout.” she said.
As of midday Thursday — with more than three weeks to go — 2,076 absentee ballots had been cast. That compares with just over 1,700 absentee ballots counted three days before the Nov. 7, 2006, election, when 45.6 percent of the county’s voters turned out.
“With the people coming in to the office to vote absentee, it can take them as much as 10 minutes, with all the amendments and propositions to read,” Earl said. “So, voters need to be familiar with them before they go in, or the lines are going to move really slow.”
She said copies of the sample ballots are available at the county courthouse in Carthage and the courts building in Joplin, at the Joplin and Carthage public libraries, and at local banks, and will they be placed in other locations.
“And if anyone wants some copies to pass out at church or a club meeting, we have them here at the courthouse,” she said.
Statewide questions on the Missouri ballot would:
Remove the loss limit for gambling, restrict the number of casinos in the state and raise revenue for education.
Create a council to ensure the availability of home-care services for elderly and disabled residents.
Require investor-owned utilities to get part of their power from renewable sources, such as wind and solar power.
Make English the official language at government meetings.
Revise state funding for the financing of storm-water projects.
In addition to the state questions, the Jasper County ballot will carry a countywide issue that would allow the county to impose a 10 percent tax on the gross receipts of adult cabarets.
In other business, John Bartosh, presiding commissioner, said the county had received $148,000 in federal funding to pay for a study on the need for a new juvenile-detention center. The county later received approval from the Department of Justice, the funding agency, to expand the review to look at the space needs of county courts and Sheriff’s Department operation. County officials last week received a preliminary report from a consulting firm, Carter Gobel Lee, that was hired to do the work.
Jim Honey, Eastern District commissioner, said the first meeting of a Jasper County group that is to study conditions in the Spring River watershed is slated for noon Tuesday.
Roof repairs
Darieus Adams, Western District associate commissioner, said bids will be opened Tuesday for a project to repair the roof of the courthouse. He said he hopes insurance will pay all, or most, of the costs. The damage was caused by ice storms.
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