{"id":980,"date":"2014-05-02T16:49:03","date_gmt":"2014-05-02T20:49:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/?p=980"},"modified":"2014-05-02T16:49:03","modified_gmt":"2014-05-02T20:49:03","slug":"not-voting-in-berkeley-springs-west-virginia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/?p=980","title":{"rendered":"Not Voting in Berkeley Springs, West Virginia"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By all accounts, the vote on the levy will be close.<\/p>\n<p>An anti-levy activist today predicted that the levy will win this time by 53 percent to 47 percent.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ylUoVBPTNrA\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>A top ranking Morgan County Republican, who is for the levy, today predicted that the levy will win by 60 percent to 40 percent.<\/p>\n<p>But Jeannie Ford, the leader of the anti-levy group, yesterday predicted that the levy will lose &#8212; same as last year &#8212; 56 percent to 44 percent.<\/p>\n<p>Traffic was heavy outside the courthouse today, the third day of early voting. <\/p>\n<p>The final vote on the levy will be held on primary election day &#8212; May 13.<\/p>\n<p>The Morgan County Clerk says that as of 4:50 pm today, about 660 people have voted. <\/p>\n<p>Sixty-seven absentee ballots have been sent out.<\/p>\n<p>Those are the citizens who are actively engaged.<\/p>\n<p>But there are people in Morgan County who just don\u2019t vote. And never have.<\/p>\n<p>A rough survey of citizens of Morgan County, West Virginia over the past couple of weeks found that small percentage of citizens  &#8212; maybe five to ten percent &#8212; proudly claim that they don\u2019t vote and never have voted.<\/p>\n<p>Their reasons vary.<\/p>\n<p>There is no point.<\/p>\n<p>Politicians are all corrupt.<\/p>\n<p>Even if they don\u2019t go in corrupt, the system corrupts them.<\/p>\n<p>And then there is &#8212; I voted for Jesus.<\/p>\n<p>We met one such non-voter &#8212; Carol Painter &#8212; today at Berkeley Springs State Park.<\/p>\n<p>Why doesn\u2019t she vote?<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBecause I started studying the Bible when I was twelve years old,\u201d Painter said. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd I became a Jehovah\u2019s Witness. And we are waiting for God\u2019s Kingdom to rule us. We will be ruled by Jesus. It will be a form of government unknown to mankind at the moment. But it will be just and it will be founded on justice, which governments aren\u2019t founded on now. And even the best of people you send to your government get corrupted. They come back ten or twenty years later as somebody they weren\u2019t when they first went.\u201d\t<\/p>\n<p>But can\u2019t we do better than we are doing now by sending better people to elected office?<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou send better people to elected office back in the 1950s,&#8221; Painter says. &#8220;People were more religious back then. Because people now don\u2019t read the Bible, they corrupt more easily.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>It doesn\u2019t matter who is in office?<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter who is in office because Jehovah God controls our earth and things will go exactly like he wants. He wants his Kingdom to rule mankind, not man\u2019s rule over man, but God\u2019s rule over man.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>You are sitting in your car here, and your car is sitting in a pool of water. When you get out, you have a choice to step in the water or step over the water onto the concrete curb. Are you saying that choice doesn\u2019t matter?<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat choice does matter,\u201d Painter says. \u201cI\u201dm going to step on the concrete.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Why then wouldn\u2019t a choice between a better and a worse candidate matter?<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBecause ultimately, the end result is in God\u2019s hands, not in man\u2019s.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe concrete represents God\u2019s Kingdom,\u201d Painter says. \u201cAnd the water represents man\u2019s being swishy-swashy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A true Christian candidate, someone who believes in helping their fellow man would represent God\u2019s candidate. The worse candidate would represent man\u2019s being swishy-swashy, right?<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat\u2019s true,&#8221; Painter says. &#8220;But the best candidate to help mankind is Jesus. He will be the King. People refer to him as the King of Kings or the Lord of Lords. And that will be the actual government that will rule mankind. And it won\u2019t be unjust.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By all accounts, the vote on the levy will be close. An anti-levy activist today predicted that the levy will win this time by 53 percent to 47 percent. A top ranking Morgan County Republican, who is for the levy, &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/?p=980\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-980","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/980","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=980"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/980\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=980"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=980"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=980"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}