Staff report

LUMBERTON — Today is the last day to cast an early vote in the runoff primary for five races.

Early voting, which can only be done at the Board of Elections office in downtown Lumberton, ends at 1:15 p.m. During the first 10 days of early voting, only about 30 people had cast ballots in Robeson County.

A runoff election is necessary when a candidate in a race does not win 40 percent of the vote in the regular primary.

There are four runoffs in Republican races, and a single one in Democratic races.

The headliner for Robeson County voters is the GOP race for District 8 in the U.S. House. Redistricting has put most of Robeson County in the district now represented by Larry Kissell, a Democrat who is awaiting his opponent in the November General Election. Republican voters are deciding between either Richard Hudson, of Concord, or Scott Keadle, of Mooresville.

Other Republican races and candidates are: N.C. lieutenant governor: Dan Forest and Tony Gurley; N.C. Commissioner of Insurance, Richard Morgan and Mike Causey; N.C. Secretary of State, Kenn Gardner and Ed Goodwin; N.C. Superintendent of Public Instruction, John Tedesco and Richard Alexander.

The only race in the Democratic Party is for N.C. Commissioner of Labor, which is between Marlowe Foster and John C. Brooks.

One of the reasons for the low turnout locally is that Robeson County has a small percentage of registered Republican votes.

All polling locations throughout the county will be open Tuesday from 6:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. Dock Locklear, director of the local elections office, estimated the cost to the county at about $17,000, half of a normal primary. He said the difference is fewer poll workers will be needed.

According to Locklear, during the May primary, there were 6,187 votes cast during one-stop voting and absentee by mail and 18,409 votes cast in-person, for a total of 24,596 votes.

State law doesn’t allow anyone who is not registered for the original primary to vote in a runoff.