Sometimes there are awards that call for two winners, like back in the day before the College Football Playoffs system when two schools would sometimes share a national championship. 

Over the past two years, Rep. Mark Pless (R-Haywood) has made multiple attempts to bring partisan municipal elections to the two counties he represents, Haywood and Madison.

Just two hours after Senators failed to concur on a bill that would have forced Haywood and Madison counties to hold partisan municipal elections, a conference committee worked out a slightly different version of the bill, which passed shortly after 8 p.m.

What does a Senate bill giving the Apex Town Council the power to hire the town’s clerk have to do with partisan elections in Haywood and Madison counties? Everything, if you’re Rep. Mark Pless.

To the Editor:

I would like to offer a small clarification to Ron Rokstool’s fine column last week  concerning Rep. Mark Pless’s partisan election bill. While I wholeheartedly agree with his opinion in that piece, at one point he mentions having read a contribution to SMN a while back by a poll worker who “said it was mostly GOP voters that would ask” why there was no party affiliation given in all the elections to make voting easier.

I read the recent article by Rep. Mark Pless, R-Haywood, regarding partisan municipal elections . I am dismayed that this man will not give up on making these elections (as well as the School Board) partisan. Apparently he only answers to his GOP voters, not to all voters in Haywood County. He is not team player nor man enough to discuss his intentions with our local politicians this would affect. He prefers to blindside them and try to pass state laws to make them partisan.

Haywood Republican Rep. Mark Pless is closer than ever to getting partisan local elections in his district — part of a growing trend by North Carolina conservatives hoping to “out” Democrats at the polls this coming November, or sooner.