Orange County has posted the detailed schedule for the Carrboro special election on March 19, looks like 13 days of early voting in Hillsborough and none in Carrboro.
http://www.co.orange.nc.us/elect/includes/ElectionCalendar.asp
March 19th Special Election for Carrboro to fill an unexpired term ending 2015 for Board of Aldermen
February 1, Noon - Filing Begins - $10 filing fee
February 15, Noon - Filing Ends
February 22 - Registration Books Close for Special Election.
February 28 - March 16 - Early Voting for Special Election
Location
Orange County Bd of Elections
Days and Hours
Thursday & Friday, Feb. 28 & March 1, 9 am - 5 pm;
Mondays - Fridays, March 4 - March 15, 9 am - 5 pm
Saturday, March 16, 9 am - 1 pm.
March 12 - Deadline to request Absentee Ballots by mail. Ballots will be available as soon as possible after filing ends on February 22.
March 19 - Special Election Day for Carrboro Municipalities only. Polls are open 6:30 am - 7:30 pm
Issues:
Comments
Looks like Carrboro will be playing out that "what if there is only one candidate" scenario.
Looking forward to working with you. Very exciting.
I know Fred's not here anymore, but can we say this is truly silly season? :)http://www.co.orange.nc.us/elect/includes/documents/2013CarrboroSpecialE...
My opinion. If early voting took place in Carrboro instead of Hillsborough you might see a few more votes. Folks walking by town hall might stop in and take advantage of the convience. Schelping to Hillsborough to vote in an election where there is only one candidate is not on peoples radar. I am assuming this is one of those topics that will come to the Aldermen as a petition for change in the near future.
Trying to gauge the local mood? I can say with high confidence that the Carrboro electorate:
- Enjoys key lime pie
- Cheers for UNC unless they're playing Wake Forest
- Rides the bus or telecommutes to work over 40% of the time
- Is looking forward to St. Patrick's Day
The fact that this election is being held when the outcome is guaranteed is troubling. Common sense easily recommends canceling the election and saving taxpayer money. The fact that this is not happening highlights the dysfunctional nature of a system that requires an act of the State Legislature to do something so simple & straight-forward. The lack of home rule powers in North Carolina are once again a hindrance to simple common sense.
While it does seem silly to have an election for a single candidate, I'd like to remind everyone WHY the BOA chose to institute the special elections provision. In 2005, Mark Chilton and Alex Zaffron, both of whom were aldermen at the time, chose to run for mayor when Mike Nelson decided not to run. When Mark won the mayor's seat, his alderman seat was left vacant. At the time, the seat had to be filled through an application process.The alderman had to choose between filling that seat with one of the recent candidates or someone who had never run for elected office in Carrboro and had been an active campaigner for one of the winning candidates. The slate of alderman candidates that year had been highly qualified and equally contentious. Several applied for the empty seat. I don't know for sure, but I suspect the appointment process was as uncomfortable for the aldermen as it was for the citizenry. They chose to appoint Dan Coleman, but also chose to amend their process so that similar situations in the future would be decided through a special election.It's unfortunate that the first application of the new policy yielded a single candidate which makes the expense look like a waste of limited financial resources. But for those of you who were here in 2005 and who were critical of the appointment process, wouldn't you prefer that in a similar situation the decision was made through a democratic election, regardless of the cost? Is $18,000 really the price of democracy?
have to be either/or? Why can't a law be written that the vacancy is to be filled by appointment by the BOA unless there is more than one applicant and, in that situation, a special election is to be held.
Whether or not you believe in a special election or an appointment process, spending money on an election that accomplishes nothing (except wasting time & money) is absurd.
Evidently somebody in Carrboro decided it cost too much to have early voting in Carrboro.