Elections
News and opinions related to local elections.
Many members of the Chapel Hill community have been working for years to increase voting awareness and participation among students. All that effort might be for naught if the Orange County Board of Elections decides to move the one-stop early voting site to the new Robert and Pearl Seymour Senior Center on Homestead Road. According to the News & Observer, Morehead Planetarium will be under construction and will not be able to host the voting site.
The news of the potential relocation of the voting site to the Senior Center, a location that is not within walking distance for students, is especially disheartening after the recent passage of the same-day voter registration bill, which many believe will help increase voter turnout among students. If we want to encourage students to take an interest or an active role in their community, we should not relocate polls to a center that is out of reach for most students.
I just called the Board of Elections to confirm that no-one is chllenging any of the three mayors (as their web site indicates) and lo and behold they are having technical difficulties! The site has been down all day and won't be back up until at least 4pm. Meanwhile 5 more candidates have filed for office:
Chapel Hill Mayor: Kevin Wolff
Chapel Hill Town Council: Will Raymond
Carrboro Board of Aldermen: Katrina Ryan
Carrboro Mayor: Chuck Morton and Brian Voyce
These folks will certainly increase the entertainment value of this election, if nothing else.
As always, you can find the complete list at http://orangepolitics.org/elections-2007. I will be adding more information this weekend including a map of candidates, their voter registration info, and any other public information that I can find without too much effort.
I just received an announcement (from Mildred D. Robertson of BTA Public Relations in Raleigh, yuck) that Orange County Commissioner Moses Carey is announcing his campaign for State Senate in 2008. This is a bold (some might say "premature") move that I think must be intended to scare others out of the race. In fact the incumbent, Senator Ellie Kinnaird, has not even formally announced her own intentions.
County Commissioner Mike Nelson has made no secret of his interest in this Senate seat. But there are rumors that Ellie would very much like to be suceeded by a woman, so she may decide to hang on if there is no palatable (to her) challenger. Personally, I like both Mike and Ellie a lot and have supported both of their campaigns, but I think there is some residual resentment left over from the days when they were both elected officials serving the Town of Carrboro.
Reports indicate that all three of our Mayors and all four members of the Chapel Hill Town Council will file for re-election sometime after the filing period opens at noon today. Zzzzz. So what's up in Carrboro and Hillsborough? How about the Chapel Hill-Carrboro School Board?
To recap, a list of the seats that are up this year is at http://orangepolitics.org/elections-2007. We'll be watching the filings page at the Board of Elections and report any updates here. I'll probably wait until the end of the day to update the OP elections page. Anyone plan to watch the action in Hillsborough first-hand?
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