It's An Off Year

The local campaigns have produced an unprecedented level of advertising--signs, mailers, and even TV and radio--for what we call around here an "off -year election." The School Board elections are deliberately scheduled to occur in years when we are not having a presidential or congressional election, partly, in theory, to help diminish the effect of party on the process. Another aspect of this nonpartisan approach is that candidates in the primary may cross-file for the ballot as both Republicans and Democrats. This year, that process produced a single slate who won both sides of the ballot. The write-in challengers, James Leous and Robert Hendrickson, have themselves been collecting donations, and according to the Centre Daily Times have secured the endorsement of most of the State College Borough Council. Here is a mailing from Leous and Hendrickson from last week explaining how to execute a write-in ballot on the no-paper-trail-electronic-ballot machines now in use in the county.