There are no addresses or phone numbers listed for the people who signed the petition! This is a dead give-away! The names on the petition represent only a small percentage of Hamlet’s population. A lot of the names were illegible. Several different names appear to have been written by the same person. These facts should have spurred an inquiry into the legitimacy of the signatures.
At least eight of the signers are not residents of Hamlet. One signer said “I live almost at the South Carolina line.” Another three live in Marston. Four live in Rockingham. There are people who live outside Hamlet that signed the petition who own property or businesses in Hamlet. I am not questioning their signatures. This list of names seems more likely to be a list of people who had a collard sandwich for lunch for lunch than concerned Hamlet taxpayers.
I have been asked to sign several petitions in my life. I have never seen a petition that did not require the address of the signer. Why did city council consider action on a document that was so questionable? Their action was inexcusable.
Mayor Smart signed the petition. One council member did not vote in favor of this action. The Council members who voted for the action on this petition were more than negligent. The people of Hamlet need to be careful of what they sign and demand accountability from the city council.
Judy B. McNeil Long
Hamlet
Where were you when the bogus voter registrations showed up in Charlotte (and other places). I don't disagree that petitions should be authentic no matter what they are being collected for. My problem is that people will go nuts over something simple...trees and not even breathe hard when it comes to something as important as voter registration. Does it have to do with political parties and political issues? We have a president who will not even make public his birth certificate (why???) and we skip right over that but names on a petition about trees is a big deal. Somehow this seems totally senseless.