Primary will determine US House nominees

Published 8:11 pm Wednesday, May 25, 2016

Early voting for the June 7 primary in Beaufort County begins Thursday at 8 a.m.

Voters may visit the Beaufort County Board of Elections office (1308 Highland Drive, Suite 104) to mark ballots. The office will be open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday and all weekdays next week, except for Monday, which is Memorial Day. The office will be open from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. June 4.

On June 7, polls throughout the county open at 6:30 a.m. and close at 7:30 p.m.

Voters will decide political parties’ nominees for the U.S. House of Representatives. In Beaufort County, that means determining the nominees in the 3rd Congressional District. Incumbent Walter B. Jones, seeking a 12th consecutive two-year term, faces challenges from Phil Law and Taylor Griffin. The winner of the June 7 GOP primary takes on the winner of the Democratic primary for the 3rd District seat. David Allan Hurst and Ernest T. Reeves face each other in the Democratic primary.

Four of the five candidates (Reeves did not file in the initial filing period) were forced to re-file as the result of a ruling by a three-member panel of judges declared two of North Carolina’s 13 congressional districts, including the 1st District, unconstitutional because race was used in setting their boundaries and set Feb. 19 as the deadline for redrawn district maps to be submitted. As a result of that ruling, the North Carolina General Assembly approved a new map depicting the state’s 13 congressional districts. The new maps place all of Beaufort County in the 3rd District. Previously, part of the county was in the 3rd District and the remaining part of the county was in the 1st District, represented by U.S. Rep. G.K. Butterfield, a Democrat.

At that time, the Legislature delayed the primaries for the U.S. House until June 7. Under that new plan, the candidate receiving the most votes in a primary would automatically win the primary and would not have to receive at least 40 percent of the votes cast, an exception to existing state law.

Also, four candidates are competing in a primary for associate justice on the N.C. Supreme Court. Filing for that office began and ended in March after a court struck down a retention election process that had been available to sitting justices. The top two vote-getters in the judicial contest will move on to the general election in November.

 

About Mike Voss

Mike Voss is the contributing editor at the Washington Daily News. He has a daughter and four grandchildren. Except for nearly six years he worked at the Free Lance-Star in Fredericksburg, Va., in the early to mid-1990s, he has been at the Daily News since April 1986.
Journalism awards:
• Pulitzer Prize for Meritorious Public Service, 1990.
• Society of Professional Journalists: Sigma Delta Chi Award, Bronze Medallion.
• Associated Press Managing Editors’ Public Service Award.
• Investigative Reporters & Editors’ Award.
• North Carolina Press Association, First Place, Public Service Award, 1989.
• North Carolina Press Association, Second Place, Investigative Reporting, 1990.
All those were for the articles he and Betty Gray wrote about the city’s contaminated water system in 1989-1990.
• North Carolina Press Association, First Place, Investigative Reporting, 1991.
• North Carolina Press Association, Third Place, General News Reporting, 2005.
• North Carolina Press Association, Second Place, Lighter Columns, 2006.
Recently learned he will receive another award.
• North Carolina Press Association, First Place, Lighter Columns, 2010.
4. Lectured at or served on seminar panels at journalism schools at UNC-Chapel Hill, University of Maryland, Columbia University, Mary Washington University and Francis Marion University.

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