DAT’S ONE DEAD PUPPY

DAT’S ONE DEAD PUPPY: Once upon a time a man named Kevin took over operations of a public cesspool after the previous overseer had done too good a job of keeping the stink away from our noses. The new guy quickly named himself King of the Dung Heap and decided that, with no experience, he would start digging around, flailing way at the pipes with a dull pickaxe and digging a deeper hole in his own warped image, leaving a messy open sewage pit- know as the current state of the state elections bureau.

So the resignation (thanks to Larry Geller for the apparent only posting of the letter) of Chief Elections Officer Kevin “King” Cronin comes with no element of sorrow- only a sense of dismay and disgust at the prospect of cleaning up his mess.

Our coverage of the, to be chartable, “foibles” of this arrogant boob has been extensive from the first inking of screw-ups to come with his having “forgot” to file to vote upon appointment, through his arrogant assent to royal “I am the state” status with his “because I said so” rulings in the Kirk Caldwell fiasco at the filing deadline- as we beat to death here, here, here, here, here and here- followed by our two takes on his “reckless disregard (for) procurement laws” in choosing to issue a long term contract for an expensive. inferior set of voting machines, which led to our still exclusive report regarding his part in a race discrimination suit in his only previous job semi-related to elections which occurred during his tenure in Wisconsin.

But perhaps the most annoying and ultimately arrogant thing in his resignation letter is this statement, as reported extensively by some media outlets without mention of his screw ups – most notably on the “that’s-what-passes-for-News-Now” conglomeration of TV stations- was how “smoothly” the 2008 elections ran.

Seems no one remembers the absurdly confusing changes and the unneeded “check box”
for party selection in the primary that more than likely led to unnecessarily voided votes and an unusual (see second entry)- and later found to be manipulated- number of spoiled ballots and overvotes.

Then of course there was Cronin’s “rules are for suckers” debacle as we examined a few times and, although there are finally new, or we should say some, administrative rules up for approval- after Cronin was forced to provide them when he lost yet another law suit resulting from his egotism and pomposity- it’s anyone’s guess if they will actually fix the underlying problems over the potential for neighbor island vote flipping and other issues resulting from his penchant for pulling rulings out his, uh, ear.

We were calling for Cronin’s resignation last August and now that it’s come a year and a half too late it’s particularly unsatisfying given the absolute mess he left and, the not just the lack of any shovel but, a concerted effort by the governor and legislature to deny use of any implement to dig our way toward conducting an election in less than a year.

We’ll probably have moments when we wish we still had the prince of prevarication to kick around but today isn’t one of them.

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We’ve got some real- and outside- world things to take care of tomorrow and Friday so we’ll dispense with our agoraphobic activities until Monday unless we get some 28 hour days.