Bringing The World Home To You

© 2024 WUNC North Carolina Public Radio
120 Friday Center Dr
Chapel Hill, NC 27517
919.445.9150 | 800.962.9862
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
Stories and features about North Carolina candidates, voters, and the politics of the 2014 mid-term elections. Polls are open across N.C. until 7:30 p.m. on election day, November 4.

'Elections Should Be Public Affairs' - NC Independents Protest Voting Rules

Vote Graffiti
Kodak Views
/
Flickr/Creative Commons

Members of North Carolina Independents, a non-partisan association of unaffiliated voters, plan to picket in downtown Greensboro Tuesday to protest barriers to access for independent candidates and voters. UNC Greensboro professor Omar Ali is a founder of the group.

"Elections should be public affairs, but what has happened is that the political parties which are private organizations have control over the process, and create laws to make it very difficult for the outsiders, the unaffiliated voters, to get in," says Ali. 

In order to get on the ballot in North Carolina, candidates who do not belong to the major parties must petition first. Then in order for their party to stay on the ballot in statewide races, they must receive two percent of the total vote.

Jessica Jones covers both the legislature in Raleigh and politics across the state. Before her current assignment, Jessica was given the responsibility to open up WUNC's first Greensboro Bureau at the Triad Stage in 2009. She's a seasoned public radio reporter who's covered everything from education to immigration, and she's a regular contributor to NPR's news programs. Jessica started her career in journalism in Egypt, where she freelanced for international print and radio outlets. After stints in Washington, D.C. with Voice of America and NPR, Jessica joined the staff of WUNC in 1999. She is a graduate of Yale University.
More Stories