ELIZABETHTOWN — The state’s Board of Elections has set the early voting hours and site for Bladen County in the upcoming May 14 election.
“Bladen County didn’t have a quorum of board members to make a decision on a One-Stop plan,” wrote Patrick Gannon in an email to the Bladen Journal. As such, the county was given the statutory minimum early voting hours.
Early voting will take place at the county Board of Elections office, 301 S. Cypress St. in Elizabethtown. The dates and hours are April 24-26 from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., April 29-May 3 from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., and May 6-10 from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.
This means early voting is available in a window of 2½ weeks only on weekdays.
On Election Day, voting will be available from 6:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m.
In the 9th District, there is the race for the U.S. House seat that has garnered national attention. There are also two races unique to Bladen County.
On May 14, the 9th District voting is a primary for 10 Republicans, and the two Bladen County races are general elections for the District 3 seat to the county commissioners and a supervisor seat on the Bladen County Soil & Water Conservation District board.
The general election for the 9th District is Sept. 10, unless a second primary is needed. In that case, the general election shifts to Nov. 5.
The U.S. House seat was formerly held by Robert Pittenger and has been occupied by a Republican since 1963. The Rev. Mark Harris, a Republican, appeared to win that seat Nov. 6 by 905 votes in a race with Democrat Dan McCready but an investigation and four-day evidentiary hearing ended in February with the state board calling for a new election.
The results of the investigation were passed along to prosecutors, who have not said their probe is complete. The district attorney’s office in Wake County has spoken, but the FBI and the State Bureau of Investigation have also been linked to misdeeds involving absentee ballots in Bladen and Robeson counties.
McRae Dowless has been accused as the architect of a ballot harvesting scheme. He’s been arrested and charged as have Caitlyn Croom, Tonia Marie Gordon, Matthew Monroe Mathis and Rebecca D. Thompson. Dowless is charged with seven low-level felonies including ballot possession and obstruction of justice; the others face charges of conspiracy to commit felony obstruction of justice and possession of an absentee ballot. Mathis also faces a charge of falsely signing certification on an absentee ballot.
Prosecutors have not said if they will charge Harris, who has said he hired Dowless, or anyone else.
Harris, formerly pastor of a large Baptist church in Charlotte, cited health reasons in deciding not to run again. McCready, from Charlotte, is the lone Democrat running.
The Republican primary field includes Stevie Rivenbark Hull of Fayetteville, Matthew Ridenhour of Charlotte, Stony Rushing of Wingate, Fern Shubert of Marshville, Dr. Albert Lee Wiley of Atlantic Beach, Chris Anglin of Raleigh, state Sen. Dan Bishop of Charlotte, Leigh Thomas Brown of Harrisburg, Kathie C. Day of Cornelius and Gary Dunn of Matthews.
In the general election along with McCready are Allen Smith of Charlotte and the Green Party, and Jeff Scott of Charlotte and the Libertarian Party.
Candidates do not have to live in the district they represent. The 9th District stretches from an eastern portion of Mecklenburg County to a southern portion of Cumberland County and northern portion of Bladen County, with all of Union, Anson, Richmond, Scotland and Robeson counties included.
Per state rules, there was no filing period for the commissioner seat or the Soil & Water seat. Candidates on the Nov. 6 ballot were automatically put on the May 14 list.
For District 3, incumbent Russell Priest of the Democratic Party will face Wayne Edge of the Republican Party.
For the nonpartisan Soil & Water seat, the choices are Earl Storms, Charles Wendell Gillespie and Tim Gause.
In November, Priest garnered 52.56 percent of the vote to 47.44 percent for Edge, and Storms led his race with 40.92 percent as compared to Gillespie’s 30.75 percent and Gause’s 27.28 percent.