Bedrock 3: The Big Picture

At the end of our last visit to the fictional Town of Bedrock, we left Fred as he applied to run for mayor. Now we’ll continue the story, but with a focus on Bedrock itself, in order to continue building up a detailed, yet simplified, account of actual U.S. election practice.

The focus is on Bedrock rather than its colorful denizens, because the answer to the current question — can Fred be a candidate for mayor in the upcoming election? — lies partly in the details of Cobblestone County and Town of Bedrock, how they are structured and administered for elections. At a first glance of the Bedrock County map, you’ll see that the Town of Bedrock is entirely in Cobblestone County, dividing the county into two regions, the part that is incorporated in the Town, and the unincorporated portion.

Look a bit more closely though, and you’ll see the Mineral District — not a town but a political division called an electoral district (in some states in the U.S., called a jurisdiction rather than a district). The Mineral District in the part of the county that’s affected by quarrying operations at the Bedrock Quarry, and the Bedrockites who live there get to elect the Quarry Commission to regulate the Quarry. Look a bit more carefully and you’ll notice that part of the Mineral District is in the Town of Bedrock, and the rest is in the unincorporated county.

To keep our Election Tale simple, that’s almost all of the electoral structure of Cobblestone County that is the jurisdiction of the Bedrock BoE. The remaining part may be a bit more familiar: the precincts. Each precinct is a region in which all of the voters are entitled to vote on exactly the same ballot items; put another way, in one precinct all of the voters reside in exact same set of electoral districts. So in Bedrock County, there are 4 precincts:

• The “Downtown-001” precinct, part of two districts: the district of the Town of Bedrock, and the district for Bedrock County;
• The “Quarrytown-002” precinct, part of those same two districts, plus the Mineral District;
• The “QuarryCounty-003” precinct, part of the Mineral District and the County;
• The “County-004” precinct, part of just the district for the County.

Looking a little more carefully, you’ll notice the Flintstone residence is in the QuarryTown-002 precinct, which means the Flintstones (or at least those of them that are registered voters) are eligible to run for offices in either the Town or the Quarry District. To say that more generally, in order to be eligible to run for an office, you have to reside in the district that the office is part of. Fred wants to run for Mayor of the Town of Bedrock, so he has to reside in the Town of Bedrock.

Back at the BBoE, Rocky has completed the eligibility check for Fred, having ensured that:

• he resides in the Town of Bedrock,
• he is registered to vote,
• his current address matches the address in his voter record,
• he is not serving jail time,

and perhaps some other eligibility requirements in Stone Age election law that we are not aware of. Fred is satisfied to find that on the Bedrock slab-site’s Upcoming Election slab, he is listed as a candidate for mayor. However, there is also a bit of a surprise: his neighbor Betty Rubble is running against him! And also Barney Rubble is running for Fred’s old Quarry Commission seat. Also, the commission’s clerical errors seem to have been resolved, and the quarry fee referendum will be on the ballot. With a few more days of filing time left, an irritated Fred ponders who lives in the Mineral District, that might be convinced to run against Barney.

Next Time: it’s time for ballot design – get out your Chisel!

— EJS