LUMBERTON — Robeson County could have a new board of elections on Thursday, and a date has been established to hear evidence on the District 9 congressional race that remains uncertified.
The newly constituted State Board of Elections meets at 10 a.m. at the North Carolina State Bar, located at 217 E. Edenton St. in Raleigh.
“The state board will begin the process of appointing county board members at Thursday’s meeting,” said Patrick Gannon, state board spokesman.
State board members will have six names from which to chose to form a new five-member Robeson County board. The county Democratic and Republican parties each nominated three people.
The Democrats chose two former members of the board that was dissolved in late December as the result of a court order that first dissolved the nine-member 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. Daniel Locklear, a Republican and member of the board that was recently resolved, was not nominated.
Stone was the chairman of the 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.
Like the new state board, the new county board is to have five members, three Democrats and two Republicans. The political party that holds the governor’s office gets the majority on the local boards.
In other elections-related action, the state board has scheduled a public evidentiary hearing for Feb. 18 on claims of irregularities related to absentee voting in the race for the District 9 seat in the U.S. House. The hearing is to take place at 10 a.m. at the North Carolina State Bar and is expected to last two days.
That race as well as three local elections in Bladen and Robeson counties remain in limbo.
Unofficial results show Harris leads McCready by 905 votes. As a result of the Feb. 18 hearing, the board could declare a winner or order a new election.
The old state board did not certify the race for Seat 2 of District Court 16B in Robeson County. Vanessa Burton, a Democrat, was shown to have beaten Jack Moody, a Republican, after absentee and provisional ballots were counted. The final total was 15,382 votes for Burton to Moody’s 15,315.
Also not certified are commissioner District 3 in Bladen and the Bladen Soil and Water Conservation District supervisor.
The agenda for Thursday’s meeting also includes action “to propose text of temporary administrative rules regarding county board issuance of photo identification cards” and a closed session to discuss the District 9 race.
