ROANOKE TIMES 

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, October 20, 1993                   TAG: 9310200042
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C3   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: DAVID M. POOLE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

CANDIDATE DIDN'T VOTE FOR 4 YEARS

Del. Richard Cranwell has criticized his opponent, Bud Brumitt, for failing to register to vote between 1988 and 1992, when Brumitt lived in Pennsylvania.

"He says he is running for the House of Delegates because he thinks citizens should be involved in their community," says a Cranwell campaign flier mailed this week to voters in the 14th House District.

"Isn't voting the basic obligation of citizenship?"

Brumitt, an engineer who retired to Botetourt County in February 1992, acknowledged that he did not register in Pennsylvania after he moved there from New Jersey in 1988.

"I just never got involved in the electoral process there," Brumitt said in an interview. "There is no excuse."

Cranwell, a Democrat from Roanoke County, is seeking to hold onto the House seat that he has held for more than two decades.

The 14th House District includes Craig County, about two-thirds of Roanoke County and portions of southern Botetourt and western Bedford counties.

In the campaign flier, Cranwell also suggests that Brumitt lied to cover up the fact that he was not registered to vote during the 1988 presidential campaign.

The flier cites a Vinton Messenger story that quoted Brumitt as saying he did not vote that year because he was called out of town unexpectedly at election time.

"Well, truth is, Bud Brumitt's voter registration in New Jersey was voided in June 1988. He wasn't even eligible to vote in November 1988.

"Virginia doesn't need this kind of ethics."

Brumitt replied that he did not realize the reporter was asking him about the presidential election, which came after his registration was voided.

In other campaign news, Brumitt and Cranwell traded accusations of negative campaigning at a joint appearance Tuesday sponsored by the Roanoke Valley Association of Life Underwriters.

Cranwell blasted the state Republican Party for mailing a brochure to voters in the 14th District that contained what he said were factual errors that distorted his voting record.

"Find out why this kind of campaigning is going on," he said.

Brumitt shot back that Cranwell had questioned his integrity. "If that's the politics we want, then it's the politics of the unkind."

Keywords:
POLITICS 

Memo: shorter version ran in the Metro edition.
by CNB