LUMBERTON — A new State Board of Elections was seated Thursday, but there is no word on when new county boards will be created. The new state board will deal with the task of untangling the congressional race for District 9.
“We have not heard when the county board members will be named,” said Tina Bledsoe, interim supervisor of the county Elections Office.
Gov. Roy Cooper selected five people nominated by the state Democratic and Republican parties. His picks were:
— Stella Anderson, of Boone. Anderson, a Democrat, was chairperson of the Watauga County Board of Elections from 2005 to 2013 and is a professor at Appalachian State University.
— David C. Black, of Concord. Black, a Republican, currently is the president of H&B Tool & Die Supply. Black also served as the Cabarrus County Board of Elections chairman.
— Jeff Carmon III, of Durham. Carmon, a Democrat, is an attorney at the CW Law Group and practices in the areas of personal injury and criminal law.
— Bob Cordle, of Charlotte. Cordle, a Democrat, previously served on the State Board of Elections until 2013 and practiced law in Charlotte from 1968 to 2018, before retiring from Mayer Brown LLP.
— Ken Raymond, of Winston Salem. Raymond, a Republican, is a freelance writer and works at the Piedmont Triad Airport. Raymond also served as the Forsyth County Board of Elections chairman.
Absent was Joshua Malcolm, a Pembroke lawyer and Democrat who put the brakes on the certification of the District 9 election.
“North Carolinians deserve fair and honest elections, and I am confident this board will work to protect our electoral process,” Cooper said.
Robeson County’s Democratic and Republican parties have submitted nominees for a reconstituted county Board of Elections. The Democrats chose two former members of the board that was dissolved in late December as the result of a court order that dissolved the state Elections Board. They are Larry Townsend and Tiffany Peguise-Powers. Karen Nance, vice president of Democratic Women, is the third nominee.
County Republicans chose Steve Stone, Olivia Oxendine and Randy Hammonds.
Stone was the chairman of the recently dissolved county Elections Board. Hammonds was a Highway Patrol troop commander and candidate for county sheriff in 2014. Oxendine is a professor at The University of North Carolina at Pembroke and a member of the State Board of Education.
The new county board is to have five members, three Democrats and two Republicans. The party who holds the governor’s office get the majority on the local boards.
There is no deadline for creating the county boards, Patrick Gannon, a State Board of Elections and Ethics Enforcement spokesman said earlier. But, it appears the members of the new state board want to get to work quickly.
Four were sworn in Thursday, but not Raymond. The four members unanimously elected Cordle chairman and Anderson board secretary, according to Gannon.
“I thank my fellow board members for their votes of confidence,” Cordle said after the meeting. “We have important work to do and plan to get started immediately.”
The board plans to meet again next week, Gannon said.
“The State Board’s first priorities include setting a date for an evidentiary hearing in the 9th Congressional District investigation and appointing members to the 100 county boards of elections,” a state board press release reads in part.
In a statement, the board said the panel should meet in February to consider evidence in the 9th Congressional District election between Republican Mark Harris and Democrat Dan McCready, with board members setting a specific date next week. The previous board refused to certify the November results because of alleged absentee ballot irregularities.
Unofficial results show Harris leads McCready by 905 votes. The new board could declare a winner or order a new election. The focus of the board staff’s investigation has been a Bladen County political worker who worked for Harris’ campaign.
The new county and state boards also will tasked with declaring a winner in Robeson County race for Seat 2 of District Court 16B. Vanessa Burton, a Democrat, was shown to have beaten Jack Moody, a Republican, after absentee and provisional ballots were counted. Moody asked for and received a recount. The final total was 15,382 votes for Burton to Moody’s 15,315.
