Local elections will be held on Tuesday, November 2, 2021, for the Carrboro Town Council, the Chapel Hill Town Council, the Hillsborough Board of Commissioners, and the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools Board of Education.
See the Democratic voter turnout so far, in your precinct, on the eve of Election Day. Total Orange County turnout (including all party affiliations + unaffiliated voters) is 67%.
In addition to mailing in your vote-by-mail ballot or returning it to the Orange County Board Elections office in Hillsborough, you can return your mail-in-ballot at ANY early voting location in Orange County.
The Board of Elections will have dedicated staff and separate lines to receive in-person returns of mail-in-ballots. They will also have extra staff to direct voters inside the polling place in an attempt to minimize people getting in the wrong lines.
Those voting by mail should FOLLOW the INSTRUCTIONS on the return envelope— the voter must sign and the witness must print their name, address and then sign. Missing witness info is the #1 deficiency on mail-in ballots.
Mail-in ballots can’t be returned to Election Day precinct polling places though.
The Chapel Hill-Carrboro City School system (CHCCS) will create a task force to decide how the district wants to address the issue of school safety, and whether School Resource Officers (SROs) and security guards should play a part.
Meeting July 23, the Board of Education voted unanimously to create the task force after hearing staff presentations and receiving a surge of emails from community members with both positive and negative views of keeping SROs in schools.
SROs are members of local police departments who work in the schools based on a contract with the school district, and are funded by the Orange County Board of Commissioners. The contract is currently lapsed and with CHCCS going virtual for the first 9 weeks of the year, the district has some time to consider whether it wants to renew existing arrangement with the police departments. In contrast, security guards are hired by the district as CHCCS employees.
Amid recent police killings, in the time of COVID-19, there are renewed calls for community safety changes including defunding the police, reforms such as the 8 Can't Wait Movement and abolition. Here's a run down of recent local responses.
Below is a regularly updated compilation of Candidate Forums for candidates running for Orange County Commissioner, District Judge and Orange County School Board.
*We will add new forums and details as they emerge. If you have corrections, updates, and new forums to share, please post in the comments below and we'll update this post.
February 3 Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools PTA Council Commissioners Candidate Forum, 7:00 pm to 8:30 pm at Chapel Hill Town Hall
February 5 Democratic Women of Orange County 'Date with a Candidate' (County Commissioner, District Judge), 6:30 pm at the Seymour Center
Primary elections are scheduled for March 3, 2020, for several county and legislative offices, including the Orange County Board of Commissioners, the Orange County Board of Education, and NC Senate and House.
Orange County Board of Commissioners
For the Orange County Board of Commissioners, an at-large seat, two District 1 seats, and a District 2 seat are up for election.
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Mail-in ballots can’t be returned to Election Day precinct polling places though.
