Board of elections: Filings to resume next month

After a pause, the Henderson County election season will resume Feb. 24 at 8 a.m. when candidates can once again file.

The pause comes after a lawsuit challenging the newly drawn congressional maps. The newest district map, drawn up by the Republican-led legislature based on the 2020 census, was challenged by plaintiffs for being unconstitutional.

Henderson County Board of Elections Director Karen Hebb said it's still up in the air whether or not these new maps will be used because while a three-judge panel upheld the map, plaintiffs filed an appeal.

Despite this interruption, Hebb said the number of filings has not dropped.

"We only had like a week of filing that opened and then they closed it," Hebb said. "This has not been a normal election cycle with the opening of filing and then the closing of filing. (The number of applicants) was about normal."

Candidates will have until March 4 at noon to file.

Filings for all county offices, state senators and members of the state House of Representatives are through the county board of elections. Filings for U.S. Senator, U.S. House of Representatives, justice of the state Supreme Court or judges for the state Court of Appeals, state superior court and state district court, are through the state board of elections.

Voters will be able to register until April 22 for the primary election, should there be one. A primary will be held only if there are more candidates who filed than can go on the ballot.

"There's always more candidates for seats than can go on the general election," Hebb said. "We've never not had a primary as long as I can remember. You can only have one candidate per seat on the general election ballot per party."

This does not apply for the board of education, which is nonpartisan.

The offices up for election in Henderson County are North Carolina Senate District 48; North Carolina State House of Representatives in districts 113 and 117; clerk of court; county commissioners for districts 1, 3 and 4; register of deeds; sheriff and three seats on the board of education.

Tim Moffitt and Dennis Justice are battling for the state senate seat for District 48. Moffitt has served 3.5 terms in the state House of Representatives District 117. Justice previously ran for the seat in 2016 and more recently lost the Republican primary in 2020 for the District 117 seat.

The state senate seat is currently held by Chuck Edwards, who is stepping down to run for Congress. Moffitt is the current representative for the House District 117.

Jake Johnson has filed for House of Representatives District 113, while Chelsea Walsh has filed for District 117. Johnson, the incumbent for District 113, has served 1.5 terms in the house. Walsh previously announced her run for Hendersonville City Council before filing for the House District 113 seat.

"After reviewing the support I had in my city council race, I realized there are so many people in my home county of Henderson who not only donated and volunteered but also wanted to vote for me," Walsh wrote on her official Facebook page on Dec. 7, 2021. "Because the city council race is limited to voters in the city limits, many of my supporters could not vote."

J. Tyler Ray has filed for re-election for the clerk of superior court. He was appointed to the role in 2019 after his predecessor Kimberly Justice moved to the district court.

County commissioners J. Michael Edney of District 1, William G. Lapsley of District 3 and Rebecca McCall of District 4 have all filed for re-election. No others have filed against them, currently. Edney is in his fifth term, while Lapsley and McCall are both in their first terms.

Lee King has filed for register of deeds and Lowell S. Griffin has filed for sheriff. Both are incumbents.

There are currently three seats up for election on the Henderson County Board of Education with five filings so far. Dot Case and Jay Egolf have filed for re-election. Mary Ellen Kustin, Aaron Purcell and Alyssa Norman have all filed against them. Case and Egolf have both been on the board since 2018.

Kustin, a political newcomer, said she is running because she believes in public education.

"I'm a true believer in public school," Kustin said. "I think Henderson County is stronger when our public schools are stronger and I want to help make them stronger."

With two young children who will be in the Henderson County public school system until 2037, Kustin said she wants to make sure students and teachers are getting the resources they need.

Kustin said that while she knows the board of education does not control paying teachers, she wants to be an advocate for teachers.

"There's money in Raleigh right now to make sure our schools are getting the funds they deserve and have deserved for the last two decades," Kustin said. "I think it's very important and I want our school board to be standing up for that and getting the money where it needs to go in our school system."

For Case, safety is one of the top priorities, whether it be from COVID-19 or other factors.

"When we started out in my term, the main thing we were concerned about was safety of our schools and safety for our kdis and our teachers," Case said. "Not from COVID, but from other things because there were shootings around the country."

Case said one of the things she is proudest of during her time on the school boards is that most Henderson County schools are now classified as having a single entry point into the school.

For the future, Case said she is looking forward to a time where school board meetings are about more than just keeping students and faculty safe from COVID-19, which she hopes will be "conquered" this year.

"A lot of people think it's all about safety of one group," Case said. "It's a whole community that has to be protected and taken care of and that's what I want to conquer this year, is to hopefully get through that and go back to not so much about COVID in every one of our meetings, but go back to new things in education and helping to improve the things our students and learning and our teachers are teaching."

One-stop early voting begins April 28 and will end May 14.

This article originally appeared on Hendersonville Times-News: Henderson County Board of elections: Candidate filings resume Feb. 24