Town election is iffy this year

There is a very real possibility that the Wake Forest town election this year for mayor and two commissioner seats will be delayed until next year.

The current mayor, Vivian Jones, and Commissioners Liz Simpers and Bridget Wall-Lennon are affected as are any possible candidates not yet announced.

In a normal year, candidates for the three positions would announce and file in July with a November election.

This year the U.S. Census announced Feb. 12 that it would not be able to release the data cities and towns need to draw their district would not be released until the end of September, and then Karen Brinson Bell, the director of the N.C. State Board of Elections, said it would take another two months for her office to process the data.

Mayor Jones said, “We have heard that the Legislature is considering doing something but nothing definitive has been decided.”

There are at least 62 cities or towns in 33 counties which have electoral districts or wards, and there are 552 towns like Wake Forest where the entire voting public votes for all candidates. The sticky problem facing members of the General Assembly, city attorneys and possible candidates is whether to allow those non-district elections to continue as usual and delay the district city elections to next year – a choice that could be confusing to voters – or to delay all municipal elections until next year.

As you may surmise, there is no agreement yet.

Usually a city or town could decide to delay their elections, but state law says they must first had the opportunity to review the census data. Since that is impossible the legislature has to make the decision.

Ms. Brinson Bell has recommended candidate filing be delayed until February of next year with primaries in May and June and the general election in November. The North Carolina League of Municipalities is opposed to that idea and so are some local officials who do not have districts.

(The information for this article came partly from state Rep. Pricey Harrison, a Democrat from Greensboro and Jordan Wilkie with the Carolina Public Press.)