Pubdate: Sat, 02 Nov 2002
Source: Post-Star, The (NY)
Section: B, Local - Region
Page: B1, bottom; jumps to top right back page B8
Copyright: 2002 Glens Falls Newspapers Inc.
Contact:  http://www.poststar.net/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1068
Graphic: Copy of ballot figure with 'finger' marked with both Marijuana 
Reform and Libertarian legends and symbols (marijuana leaf and statute of 
liberty).
Caption: "Both parties' symbols appear on the last line of the ballot"
Author: Gretta Nemcek
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/pot.htm (Cannabis)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/decrim.htm (Decrim/Legalization)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/rehab.htm (Treatment)

ARRANGEMENT OF BALLOT IRKS LIBERTARIAN CANDIDATE

Independent state Assembly candidate William Bombard says his placement on 
the ballot could be an occupational hazard and has already cost him one vote.

Bombard's name appears on the same line as the Marijuana Part Reform 
candidates for governor, and he has already received a call from a voter 
who assumed he, too, was a member of the Marijuana Reform party.

"She said to me that she was upset because I was a Marijuana Reform Party 
candidate. I said, 'No I wasn't,'" said Bombard, who is running on the 
Libertarian Party line. "I didn't know anything about it, because I never 
looked at the ballot."

He marched directly to the Warren County Board of Elections to see for 
himself, where he found he did share the same line with the Marijuana 
Reform Party, whose gubernatorial candidate has the first row on the left.

Warren County Election Commissioner Mary Beth Casey said the confusion is 
the result of a crowded ballot.

"There's not anything we can do about it, because the machine can only 
accommodate nine parties down," Casey explained. "Then what they have to do 
is start wrapping back up and around. And they always start from the bottom 
and work their way up when they have to do the wrapping."

She explained that all of the Libertarian Party candidates had to go across 
the full face of the ballot on the same line.

Casey said the ballots wrap up from the bottom because it's less confusing 
for voters. In the last presidential election, several parties shared the 
bottom four lines.

"They're very particular in how they do that ballot," she said. "There's a 
lot to it. People don't even realize what goes into creating the face of a 
ballot. It just happens that was how that particular one came out."

But Bombard wasn't satisfied with the answer from the Board of Elections. 
"To an old person, all they see is the Marijuana Reform Party and then they 
go all the way across," he explained. "They don't see the Libertarian 
stuff, you don't see the Statue of Liberty logo."

Bombard, a counselor who works with recovering alcoholics and drug addicts, 
said his job could be at risk if people think he is a member of a party 
that promotes ending criminal prohibition of marijuana. He also thinks he 
will lose votes from people who won't look down the line for his name. "I 
already lost a vote because of it. And I'm not saying I would lose the 
election because of it, but I did lose a vote, and I've got someone that's 
mad at me," Bombard said.
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MAP posted-by: Jackl