The paperwork is in, and a new slate of candidates has been set for New Hanover County s municipal elections this fall.
The contest will include a face off for Wilmington mayor as former state senator Harper Peterson challenges long-time mayor Bill Saffo. Also, the race for spots on the Wilmington City Council and Carolina Beach Town Council are set to have crowded candidate fields.
Municipal elections will be held on Nov. 2, 2021 to fill local government positions in the city of Wilmington and the towns of Wrightsville Beach, Carolina Beach and Kure Beach. The filing period for municipal elections opened on July 2 at noon and concluded at noon on Friday.
The 2020 election brought out 178,000 votes tallied in New Hanover County. (Port City Daily/Johanna Still)
NEW HANOVER COUNTY One of the controversial election-related actions in recent years has been the purging of voter rolls the official records of people who are registered to vote. That status is a critical part of a person’s ability to vote in an election.
Both state and federal laws require that states’ rolls of registered voters are “accurate and up to date,” according to a news release sent Thursday by the N.C. Board of Elections (BOE).
“Accurate voter rolls are maintained by removing voters who have moved or died or are otherwise ineligible to vote in that jurisdiction,” a spokesperson for the state elections board said in the release. “Voter roll list maintenance is important because it ensures ineligible voters are not included on poll books, reduces the possibility for poll worker error and decreases opportunities for fraud.”