More than a month has gone by since Alamance County’s board of elections certified the results of the party primaries in March. Yet, there are still couple of blanks that the local elections office is anxious to fill on the ballot for November’s general election.
In the meantime, rumors have been circulating of at least one other ballot slot that could become open in a contest for North Carolina’s state house.
At the moment, the only two slots on November’s ballot that, technically, remain unclaimed concern a special two-year position that’s available on the county’s board of commissioners due the death of the late commissioner John Paisley, Jr.
Roughly a month after Paisley’s death, the leadership of Alamance County’s GOP gathered in Burlington to tap local businessman Sam Powell as a temporary seat filler for the late county commissioner. They also selected Powell as their nominee for a special two-year term that, under state law, will be up for grabs in November to fill out the remainder of the unexpired four-year term that Paisley clinched in 2024.
At this juncture, Alamance County’s Democrats don’t appear to have met to name their champion to take Powell on in the general election. In the meantime, the local elections office does not appear to have received any formal submissions for this two-year term.
“I have not been notified by either party about the names they want to have on the ballot,” Dawn Hurdle, the county’s elections director, conceded in an interview on Monday afternoon.
Hurdle added that officials in Raleigh have not given her a hard-fast due date for the two parties to notify her about their nominees. She noted, however, that the state’s printing schedule for ballots imposes a somewhat informal deadline on these selections.
“They are requesting that we have the names by mid July” Hurdle went on to explain, “because [state officials] immediately have to start printing the ballots after [candidate] filing for soil and water conservation and municipal elections that are on the ballot in some counties.”
According to the N.C. State Board of Elections, aspirants for local social and water conservation boards will be able to file their candidacies between Monday, June 8 and Monday, July 6. Meanwhile, another filing period will run from Monday, July 6 through Friday, July 17 for the few municipal races that are in contention across the state this year.
Another potential loose end in November’s ballot is the potential withdrawal of Democrat Whitney Olive from the race to represent North Carolina’s 63rd district in the state house.
Olive is currently slated to fight it out with Republican Ryan Moffitt over this seat, which presently belongs to outgoing Republican representative Steve Ross. There have nevertheless been rumblings of Olive’s possible departure from this race – which allegedly hark back to a social media post that has since been removed.
As of this Monday, the Facebook page for Olive’s campaign contained no mention of her rumored withdrawal. Nor had Hurdle received any official word on the candidate’s alleged change of heart.
“I haven’t heard from her directly,” the county’s election director told The Alamance News on Monday afternoon.
When reached for a clarification on Tuesday, Olive was determined to play her cards close to the vest.
“I’m not going to comment on that at the moment,” she said, “[although] I am a candidate as of now.”
In order to bow out at this point in the campaign, Olive or anyone else who is in the running this fall must use a special form to notify the local board of elections of their intentions in writing.
One post-primary development that has come to fruition however has been the formal addition of independent Shannon Long to the race for Alamance County’s sheriff.
Under state law, Long had to collect the signatures of 4,741 Alamance County voters in order to run for sheriff as an unaffiliated contender. By the time his petition came due when voters went to the polls for the March 3 primaries. In the end, Long had assembled more than 5,000 names – which were certified by the chair of the local board of elections in the days after the primary. According to Hurdle, the certification process delayed the Long’s formal recognition as a candidate until March 11.
“The filing couldn’t take place until his signatures were certified,” she elaborated. “Then he paid his filing fee, and I entered him [onto the candidate list]”
According to the local elections office, the filing fee for Alamance County’s sheriff stands at $1,305.94. Hurdle said that the fee has been tendered by both Long and the county’s incumbent sheriff Terry Johnson, who will appear on November’s ballot after fending off two rivals in this year’s Republican primary.
