Sullivan Election Commission wants to ban campaign trailers from lot
Sullivan Election Commission wants to ban campaign trailers from lot
BLOUNTVILLE — The Sullivan County Election Commission wants Sullivan County Mayor Steve Godsey to ban the use of unhitched trailers as campaign advertisements in the county-owned parking lot many voters will begin using Friday to get to the polling place.
Two trailers have been left in the parking lot for several days — both covered with campaign material for two particular Republican candidates for countywide offices on the ballot Aug. 5.
Early voting for those and other offices begins Friday.
Sullivan County Administrator of Elections Jason Booher — chairman of the Sullivan County Republican Party prior to his appointment as administrator last year by the then newly Republican-controlled Sullivan County Election Commission — said his office has no control over campaigning past a 100-foot boundary imposed by state law.
The Election Office is located within the Sullivan County Office Building at the intersection of State Route 126 and Blountville Boulevard. It is one of three early voting locations in the county for races on the ballot on Aug. 5 and is a voting precinct on election day.
Booher said the Election Commission, in a bipartisan effort, voted Tuesday to ask Godsey to impose restrictions on the section of the taxpayer-owned building’s parking lot past the 100-foot boundary.
Specifically, Booher said, the Election Commission wants the county to ban placement of anything in the parking lot that can’t be moved easily and quickly — for example, an unhitched trailer.
Such displays are prohibited already by local regulations at the two other early voting locations for county voters: the Kingsport Civic Auditorium and the Bristol YWCA.
Booher said of the two campaign trailers parked in the county parking lot Wednesday, an open-bed utility trailer advertising Peggy Bridgeman Campbell’s campaign arrived first, and the much larger semi-type trailer advertising Bart Long’s campaign arrived later.
Both Campbell and Long are Republicans attempting to unseat longtime Democrats — in a year in which some GOP candidates have said that is reason enough to run.
Booher said during discussion of the situation on Tuesday, Election Commission Chairman James Holmes — a Republican himself — cited concern that the public would think the placement of campaign trailers for Republican candidates is linked to the party having gained control of the Election Office last year.
Campbell, like her husband, is an employee of the Sullivan County Highway Department. She seeks to unseat Sullivan County Trustee Frances Harrell.
Long, a half-term Sullivan County commissioner from the Bristol area, seeks to unseat longtime Register of Deeds Mary Lou Duncan, whose 36 years in office include having been named 2008 Outstanding Register of Deeds in the state by the Tennessee County Officials Association.
Earlier in the campaign, Long was the most vocal proponent of the call for the County Commission to ban campaigning from county properties.
At the time, Long said county residents should be able to come to county offices to conduct business without being forced to see campaign materials.
Long told the Times-News then that the public shouldn’t have to endure having it “crammed down their throats” and that exhibition of partisan campaign materials in county offices “challenges the beliefs” of county residents loyal to an opposing party — and citizens shouldn’t have to tolerate that in order to conduct their business with the county.
Asked if he objected to employees wearing campaign buttons on their person — even if that is viewed as a personal expression — Long said absolutely.
The parking lot where Long’s campaign trailer has been parked this week is also home to a Sullivan County clerk’s office — where county residents go to, among other things, get car tags.
Booher said his office (323-6444) had received only a few telephone calls regarding the two campaign trailers in the parking lot.