Buying Votes in Lincoln County

Buying Votes in Lincoln County

It is risky for a poor person to turn down any offer they get to sell their vote. When I lived in Lincoln County, the Jackson-Stowers faction of the Democrat Party controlled the Board of Education, the County Commission and the welfare department thus controlling almost all of the jobs in the county. A poor person or one of their relatives could easily get hurt economically for not cooperating with that kind of power.

A few years ago a man close to the operation told me that there were 160 votes for sale at one precinct in Lincoln County. The man should know because his wife worked inside the polling place and gave signals to the paymaster outside when bought votes were cast as directed. A vote sold to the winning side might get some gravel in your driveway courtesy of the other taxpayers. One Election Day dirt roads all over Lincoln County were paved.

A neighbor offered to drive me to the polls to vote, with the understanding that I would be paid. When I told him that I wouldn’t sell my vote, he pointed to the new gravel in his driveway and asked, “I got a load of gravel for my vote, what will you get for yours?”

If you are smart enough to sell your vote to the winning side and your kid gets in trouble with the law the charges can mysteriously disappear. A traffic ticket can be dismissed if you are a “friend” of the ruling political faction. Now if you bet on the wrong horse, you could be in deep trouble. One beer joint owner found out real fast what it means to get on the wrong side of Lincoln County’s ruling families. Cops waited at closing time down the road from his tavern and arrested anyone leaving who was driving under the influence. Sometimes I felt that the Soviet Union was probably a whole bunch of Lincoln Counties, back to back.

Votes are not always bought with money. Often substances of real value are offered. The older generation likes to sell their votes for some whiskey while the younger go for marijuana.

It was a hoot to read in the Gazette of Jerry Weaver, the disgraced Lincoln County Assessor, allowing as how he fixed traffic violations based on friendship and not votes. It’s not clear if he was bragging about being a prince of a guy or just revealing his lack of a moral compass. Perhaps he thought it was not a crime to fix a ticket if done for friendship. Kind of reminds me of Chicago Mayor Daley the elder answering to charges of nepotism. It’s the American way, he said, to take care of your family.

According to the Gazette, the federal prosecutors are going to recommend home confinement for Greg Stowers!* That will confirm the Lincoln County cynicism that the big guys always get off. The disgraced Stowers, who resigned his circuit clerk position after pleading guilty, admitted that he organized and led the vote-buying program. Amazingly he is going to get to lounge at home in exchange for snitching on the people he hired to break the law.* Hopefully he will rat on those above him too.

It is also revealing that the Federal prosecutors are not going to ask Mr. Stowers to squeal on his family. The logical conclusion is that there is something very bad he could say about his kin. In return for snitching on his private army his relatives walk.

Greg Stowers is no small player in the Democratic Party. Among his good friends are both of West Virginia’s United States Senators**. Greg was a member of the state Democrat Executive Committee. His brother Lyle is vice-chairman of that committee. They inherited their power from their father Wiley Stowers. Getting caught verified the commonly held opinion in Lincoln County that the boys aren’t nearly as smart as the old man.

A school administrator, active in Lincoln County Republican politics, told me in 1979 that every school bond issue election that ever passed was stolen. In a fit of deformed social responsibility, Democratic and Republican leaders decided that for the good of the school system the bond issues should pass. They joined forces to rig the elections. Lincoln county parents are so united against school consolidation that it was politically expedient to let them have their way and defeat bond issues that would match School Building Authority grants.

Another school official, who has played both sides of the political fence, told me that he bought votes for the Stowers faction back when the old man was running things. He expressed disgust for people who would sell their vote. Sort of like a “John’s” disgust for a prostitute. A man who taught Principles of Democracy to high school students was caught with a trunk load of half pint bottles of whiskey destined for the polling places.

An election can be won in Lincoln County by investing just $5000 in vote buying. Maybe all past elections should be nullified and monitors from the United Nations brought in to supervise new elections.

Corruption is not a southern West Virginia phenomenon. Arch Moore*** is from the northern panhandle and Jerry Messatesta lives in the eastern panhandle. Neither do the Republicans have reason to get smug, old Arch was not a Democrat and neither is Tom DeLay. Wealthy people have bought both parties and victimize the poor and, in turn, all citizens.

Twisted Gun

In David Walsh’s June 15 Herald-Dispatch puff piece on Twisted Gun he exudes about the view. He says that when golfers drive up to the parking lot they see a stark contrast. Stark is right, in every direction there is stark reminder that the beautiful mountains are gone. There was not a tree in sight. It was green fairways sitting in the middle of a moonscape. Of course there were no trees. The native hardwoods like hickory and oak will never grow there, nor will the lush understory of an unmolested Appalachian hardwood forest.

Walsh writes that golfers have unobstructed views of ridges in West Virginia, Kentucky and Virginia. The view is unobstructed because the closest mountains have been blasted away.

One golfing official allowed as how, “It best exemplifies what coal operators can do.” It sure does! The destroyed mountains all around and the streams filled in with mine waste show what the mine operators can do.

The same official said that the hills are a hurdle to having more great courses. Well what a pity that those pesky old Appalachian Mountains get in the way of knocking a small white ball around. Who needs the mountains if it means we can’t play golf?

The title of the article “Twisted Gun turns coal mine to gold mine.” is surely a joke. There were 17 cars in the parking lot at 3 pm on a Thursday. I suppose three or four of those belong to employees. That golf course will never pay for itself. It will probably never meet operating expenses. It will never be shut down as long as the coal companies can use it for their propaganda.

Walsh wrote that there are reminders of the region’s heritage everywhere. If destroyed mountains is our heritage it is certainly viewed in all directions from Twisted Gun. A stark reminder of what our children are inheriting. So far that heritage is to the tune of 500,000 acres of destroyed mountains. To get a grasp on 500,000 acres try to imagine a quarter mile swath of destruction from New York to San Francisco. Only five per cent of the destroyed mountains have any kind of “economic development.” 475,000 acres look like the moon with non-native grass that could grow through Teflon.

The golf official who seemed to be able to ignore the destruction all around Twisted Gun asked, "What more could you want?"

How about the end of mountain top removal.