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Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Three new faces on school board
Victories by Benjie Forrest, Mary Blount Williams and Jennifer Little will put three new faces on the Pitt County Board of Education.
Forrest will take the open seat held by Delano Wilson, who did not seek re-election. Williams defeated incumbent Sydney Scott of Belvoir, and Little defeated incumbent Betsy Leech of Greenville.
Forrest defeated Leon Johnson in the District 6B race. Forrest received 3,162 votes, according to unofficial results from the N.C. Board of Elections. Johnson got 1,448 votes.
Forrest could not be reached for comment Tuesday, but he recently said his priorities include improving student achievement and reducing the drop-out rate in Pitt County.
Mary Blount-Williams received 2,112 votes to unseat Scott, who received 1,838 votes, in District 2B.
“I have worked hard with all the schools, with the parents and the administrators to get things done across the county,” Blount-Williams said.
“I am looking forward to bridging the community together along with the Pitt County school board.”
Williams recently served as the president of the Pitt County PTA Council.
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Little defeats incumbent Leech on school board
Jennifer Little defeated incumbent Betsy Leech in the school board race for District 5B.
Little defeated Leech by 731 votes. Little received 3,106 votes and Leech received 2,375, according to unofficial results. A third candidate, Sean Kenny, received 719 votes.
“I am excited about winning,” Little said.
“I am excited about diving in soon to get busy for the kids and make a difference.”
Little said that the 2005 redistricting decision by the school board helped her candidacy.
“I think people are ready for a change,” she said.
Little said one of her priorities is to fix the problems associated with school assignment and reduce the size and term limits of the school board. The board currently has 12 members who served six-year terms.
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Owens re-elected to school board
Pitt County Board of Education chairman Barbara Owens was overwhelmingly re-elected to her seat.
Owens received 3,749 votes, according to unofficial results. Corey Rhodes received 1,188 votes and Michael Gillin received 584 votes.
“I am just delighted to have the opportunity to serve again,” Owens said.
“When I was out today seeing lots of people go to the polls, I was just hoping they were voting for me.”
Owens is the wife of Pitt County Board of Commissioners chairman Mark Owens.
Owens received 67 percent of the vote in her district to defeat her two challengers.
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Camnitz earns third term
Jill Camnitz will return for her third term on the Pitt County school board after defeating former school board member, Walter Gaskins.
“I feel great,” Camnitz said.
“Having served on the board for 12 years, I see it as an affirmation of what I’ve been doing.”
She served as the chairman of the school board in 2003-04.
Camnitz received 2,894 votes, according to unofficial results. Gaskins received 1,810 votes.
Camnitz said she looks forward to continuing to work for her priorities in the district that include improving student performance and making responsible fiscal decisions.
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Totals are in with all precincts reporting
Local results are in: Barack Obama takes Pitt County with 60 percent of the vote in unofficial polling. He was winning the state as well in unofficial totals.
Beverly Perdue also won Pitt County in the Democratic race for governor with 57 percent of the vote. Perdue was leading statewide.
In County Commissioner Dist. A: Incumbent Melvin McLawhorn , 4,753; Reginald Walton 1,924 with 16 of 16 precincts reporting.
School Board 1B: Clifton Hickman 1,268; incumbent Ralph Love 1,911 with 10 of 10 precincts reporting.
School Board 2B: Mary Williams, 2,112; incumbent Sydney Scott 1,838, with 8 of 8 precincts reporting.
School Board 3B: Incumbent Jill Camnitz 2,894; Walter Gaskins 1,810, with 10 of 10 precincts reporting.
School Board 4B: Michael Gillin 584; incumbent Barbara Owens 3,749; Corey Rhodes 1,188, with 10 of 10 precincts reporting.
School Board 5B: Sean Kenny 719; incumbent Betsy Leech 2,375; Jennifer Little 3,106, with 10 of 10 precincts reporting.
School Board 6B: Benjie Forrest 3,162; Johnson 1,448 with 10 of 10 precincts reporting.
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Davis leading in Senate 5; Taft close behind
Don Davis is the front runner in the state Senate District 5 race with nearly all of Pitt and Wayne county precincts reporting. His home county, Greene, still hadn’t reported its results.
At 9:45 p.m., Davis was leading with 32 percent of the vote, closely followed by Kathy Taft, who had 26 percent of the votes.
Ed Wilson had a slight edge over Tony Moore with 13.46 percent and 13.19 percent of the vote, respectively.
Chuck Stone and Charles Johnson rounded out the ballot with 9.43 percent and 5.38 percent of the vote, respectively.
State law says if the winning candidate doesn’t secure 40 percent of the votes cast, the second-place challenger can call for a second primary.
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Forrest wins Board of Education seat
Benjie Forrest won a seat on the Pitt County Board of Education as result totals began to filter in Tuesday night.
Forrest defeated Leon Johnson in the District 6B race. Forrest received 3,162 votes, according to unofficial results from the N.C. Board of Elections. Johnson got 1,448 votes.
Forrest will fill the seat that will be left vacant on the school board by Delano Wilson, who choose not to run for re-election this year.
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McLawhorn wins District A
Pitt County Commissioner Melvin McLawhorn has earned a convincing victory in the District A commissioner’s race.
The incumbent captured 71 percent of the votes to emerge over challenger Reginald Walton.
McLawhorn won 14 of the 16 precincts in District A, and finished with 4,753 of the 6,677 total votes in the district. The duo tied in Greenville Precinct 8B, and Walton won Greenville Precinct 7B.
McLawhorn did not return phone calls seeking comment Tuesday night.
Currently serving as the vice chairman for the county’s Board of Commissioners, McLawhorn, 59, is one of three commissioners who represent a combined district. Combined districts encompass two of the county’s single election districts. District A is a combination of Districts 1 and 2.
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Early results trickling in
The polls for the North Carolina Primary have closed, and the results are slowly being revealed.
With two of Pitt County’s 38 precincts reporting and the early voting results tallied, more than 11,000 ballots have been recorded.
Some candidates are already distancing themselves from their opponent.
Visit reflector.com for full county and state results.
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Deadline for voting looms
The 7:30 p.m. deadline for voting in today’s primary is less than an hour away, and officials are preparing for a wave of results.
In a new twist this year, Dave Davis, interim director of the Pitt County Board of Elections, said counties are required to send their results directly to the State Board of Elections.
The mandate is intended to make every county equal in their ability to release results to the public, he said.
In the past, Pitt County has published results via its Web site on election night.
“The state took away our old software that we used to manually enter in the results and print them out,” Davis said. “Now we upload the information directly to the State Board of Elections Web site.”
The Daily Reflector will provide local results on www.reflector.com as part of its primary election coverage. People who access the Web site can view the results county and statewide.
Davis said he has been assured by state officials the new system will work without any problems.
“They have told us that it is supposed to be able to handle it, but we shall see,” Davis said. “Of course, as a last resort you can always come to the office at the end of the night. We will post them on the door before we head home.”
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Notes from Precinct 11A
Diane Davis stood in the hot sun to electioneer for her nephew, Snow Hill Mayor Don Davis, who is running for N.C. Senate District 5.
She asked nearly everyone who walked by at the Greenville 11A polling place at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints on Martinsborough Road to consider voting for Davis in the Democratic Primary.
As Davis’ campaign manager, she spent the morning at the University Church of Christ before moving to the Martinsborough Road location.
She said that the national interest in the race between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton is driving Democrats to the polls.
“Being that North Carolina has a say-so in the presidential election, I would say that there are more Democrats out today,” she said.
“I know households that are split down the middle between Hillary and Obama.”
Machine setback Officials in 11A had to deal with a setback with the voting machine.
The machine that counts the votes after voters fill out the bubble sheet had trouble with a memory card this morning, said Tom Best, election official at the site.
Officials had to bring in a new card to fix the problem. Election judges from the three parties were brought in to witness the ballots being fed into the machine after they had been stored until the machine was operational.
The site had seen nearly 600 voters by 3 p.m. There were 400 early voters from that precinct, Best said.
Best is expecting to see about 800 voters come through today.
“We are tracking right along, not forming lines and everything is going smoothly,” he said.
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School board race drives Greenville couple
The Pitt County Board of Education election was the primary race driving Drock Vincent and his wife, Julie, to the polls.
The couple voted at 3:30 p.m. at the Greenville 11A polling place at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints on Martinsborough Road.
The have two small children who will be in the school system soon. They both attended Pitt County Schools as children.
“People are saying there is a need for change in the national election, but after the past three years of chaos on the school board, good tax-paying people are choosing to send their children to private schools,” Drock Vincent said.
“It may not be the reality of the school board, but it is the perception,” he said. “You can be sure we did not vote for anyone who is on the board.”
The Vincents are Republicans and said they do not have a dog in the fight when it comes to Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.
“There are a lot of eyes on the national election, but we also need to pay attention to our city,” Julie Vincent said.
The Vincents live in the Bedford community with their two-year-old and four-year-old children.
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Pitt’s voter turnout reaches 25 percent
Pitt County election officials say the county’s voter turnout has reached 25 percent, the largest total since 2000.
More than 14,300 people have cast votes today, Dave Davis, interim director of the county’s Board of Elections, said, adding that the inclusion of One-Stop voters brought the countywide total to 23,483 when precincts reported at 3 p.m.
“We have more than doubled our turnout since the precincts reported this morning,” Davis said. “This is kind of what we were expecting. I know we have had bigger primary elections in the past, but this is already bigger than anything we’ve had in a long, long time.”
Davis said today’s total is already the largest for a primary since 2000, which is the oldest data immediately available to him.
The largest turnout was reported at Greenville’s No. 4 Precinct at Selvia Chapel Free Will Baptist Church, which Davis says is the county’s largest. Nearly 630 people had voted there.
Other large turnouts were at Winterville’s Central B Precinct (613), and Greenville Precincts No. 9 (600) and No. 11A (605).
The smallest turnouts have been at Precinct 1301 in Swift Creek and Greenville Precinct 7B at Elm Street Gym. Swift Creek had seen 133 people cast votes, while 145 people had voted at Elm Street.
“Our turnout is mostly East Carolina students, and I think a lot of them have gone home,” Barbara Brown, Greenville Precinct 7B chief judge, said. “It has been sort of slow because of that.”
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Illegal sample ballots distributed
The Pitt County Board of Elections has received a pair of complaints about illegal sample ballots being distributed today outside of polling places.
Dave Davis, interim board director, said two people have brought sample ballots which do not comply with state regulations to his office today. The ballots were handed out by campaigners at Greenville’s Elm Street poll and a Farmville polling location, Davis said.
The ballots, which provide voters with recommendations for various races, must include a notice for the campaign sponsoring them, Davis said. The examples brought to the board did not comply with state regulations, he said.
Davis said he had been contacted by one of the candidates who had representatives distributing the ballots. Don Davis, a District 5 Senate candidate, said he was not aware of the rules, and told the board director he would advise his workers to add the proper notification to each ballot.
Dave Davis said he did not want to speculate on the other candidates distributing the ballots, although he has an idea who they are.
“It’s just one of the things we have to watch for on election day,” Dave Davis said. “But there is really not a lot we can do about it except advise the candidates or their representatives of the rules again.”
Dave Davis said any sample ballots he obtains will be handed over to state election officials, who are the only ones with the authority to penalize candidates.
“As long as the people are outside of the 50-foot buffer zone we have for electioneering, there isn’t much we can do,” Davis said. “If the people who receive the ballots want to give them to us, then we can send them to the state and they can do what they feel is appropriate.”
The two people who brought in sample ballots earlier today declined to leave them, Davis said.
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Republicans scarce during today’s election
Republican voters have been tough to find during today’s primary, but those who have cast a ballot say it is the governor’s race that is peaking their interest.
Many of the voters approached outside of polling locations today have said they voted on a Democratic ticket, but a few Republicans are doing their civic duty.
Ryan Glover, a 25-year-old Republican, said he wanted to do his part in getting Fred Smith the GOP’s nomination for North Carolina’s gubernatorial race.
“I read Fred Smith’s book, and I really liked his philosophy,” Glover said. “He seemed like the right candidate for me.”
“This is mainly about exercising my right to vote,” Glover added.
Republican Barbara Venters said she also voted for Smith, although she isn’t sure about how effective any of the candidates will be.
“I’m not too excited about any of the choices, but I tried to do the best I could,” said Venters, who added that she also liked Smith’s book titled “A Little Extra Effort.”
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Steady turnout reported statewide
RALEIGH, N.C. — North Carolina’s time to speak out in the historic race for the White House arrived Tuesday as voters steadily cast ballots for the presidential nomination, a race that overshadowed primaries for governor, Senate and statewide office.
In interviews at a handful of North Carolina’s nearly 4,000 polling places, voters often cited the economy and the war in Iraq as the top issues on their mind.
“I’m interested in a change, because of high prices, the boys overseas,” said Christine Hines, 84, as she walked out of Pearsontown Elementary School in Durham. She and friend Vivian Samuel, 78, both voted for Barack Obama in the Democratic presidential primary.
They arrived as Lt. Gov. Beverly Perdue greeted a steady stream of voters at the school. She and fellow Democratic gubernatorial candidate Richard Moore, the state treasurer, worked the polls Tuesday morning to catch up with any last undecided voters.
“We have run a good campaign. We have worked hard to get our message out across North Carolina,” Moore said outside the polling station at Pullen Arts Center near N.C. State University. “It’s really … in the hands of the voters.”
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Card errors affecting Pitt County
Pitt County elections officials say they are not immune to a statewide problem with the cards which retain information from voting machines.
Dave Davis, interim director of the county’s Board of Elections, said four precincts have reported issues with the cards, but a backup system is proving to be effective.
“We’ve had some issues with them,” Davis said. “We’re getting card error messages on the machines when the chief judge puts the card in. It has been an issue all over the state.”
Davis said state elections officials are aware of the problem, but the only solution is storing the ballots until a replacement card can be located.
If an official has a defective card, they are required to place ballots into another slot on the machine for storage until a replacement card arrives.
Once a replacement card is located, the chief judge and another official enter the ballots, Davis said. The numbers are checked later by county officials to ensure they match up with the number of people who signed in.
“Everyone needs to know that if they cast a ballot in Pitt County, it will be counted,” Davis said. “This is just a little hiccup.”
Election officials and a representative from PrintElect, which manufactures the machines, will be checking in at polling locations throughout the day to ensure things are running smoothly, Davis said.
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Voter turnout steady so far
The turnout for today’s primary election has been pretty steady so far, an official with the Pitt County Board of Elections said.
Dave Davis, interim board director, said nearly 6,300 voters have cast a ballot this morning with 37 of the county’s 39 precincts reporting.
The turnout, which Davis says is approximately 7 percent of registered voters, has come with little waiting at most locations.
“We haven’t really had any long lines that I’m aware of, and things have been pretty steady,” Davis said. “It has been kind of what we expected so far.”
The Winterville Central B Precinct and Greenville’s 1503 Precinct have not reported yet, Davis said.
With the nearly 9,000 voters who cast early ballots included, Pitt County has seen about a 16 percent turnout so far, according to Davis, who says most voters are expected after 5 p.m. today.
Davis said more than 55,000 voters turned out during the last presidential election. While he doesn’t expect today’s numbers to get that high, he is thinking it may be close.
“We still have a big day ahead of us so we’ll see what happens,” Davis said.
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Presidential race on voters’ minds
The race for the Democratic presidential nomination was on many voters’ minds this morning as they cast ballots in the North Carolina Primary Election.
John Kondracki and his wife, Agnes, each said they voted for Sen. Hillary Clinton as they exited the polling location for Precinct 1506 at First Pentecostal Holiness Church.
Agnes, 82, said she has been a supporter of Clinton for many years.
“I have not known her personally, but I have followed her,” Agnes said. “She tries to help the poor. She tries to do what is right for the children, and she has experience.”
John Kondracki said he is skeptical of Clinton’s rival for the Democratic nomination, Sen. Barack Obama.
“I’ve heard a lot of things about him, and I believe he is a Muslim,” Kondracki said. “I don’t think he can be trusted. All of the youngsters don’t really know what they are doing, and they are voting for him. I guess it’s because he looks younger, and they like that.”
One younger voter who chose Obama today was Nequilla Greene, a 21-year-old East Carolina student from Raleigh.
“That was the reason I came out today,” Greene said at the Elm Street Gym poll for Precinct 1507B. “I wanted to vote for Barack. I think he will make a difference in our country.”
Greene cited the ongoing war and high gas prices as the issues which concern her most.
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Primary voting begins across county, state
North Carolina’s pivotal primary day arrived today as voters in Pitt County and across the state prepared to cast crucial ballots that could sway a historic race for the White House and equally competitive campaigns for the Executive Mansion.
Voters began to trickle in early this morning at several polling places around Greenville but no lines were reported at Winterville and Greenville precincts located at New Destiny Pentecostal, Hooker Memorial, Elm Street Gym and the Willis Building.
Even before the opening of polls at 6:30 a.m., the most significant primary in at least two decades has already brought signs of record turnout. Nearly half a million people had already cast early and absentee ballots as of Monday — more than half the total number of voters statewide who cast a ballot during the 2004 primary.
Pitt County voting was completed when the last ballots were cast between 3:30 and 4 p.m. Saturday. A total of 8,515 votes were cast at three polling locations.
“I can’t remember a primary that had this much excitement,” said Gary Bartlett, director of the State Board of Elections. “It’s truly fun to be part of making history, and I hope that this encourages voters to participate in all primary elections.”
The boon at the ballot box appears to hold the biggest sway over the Democratic races, including the top-ballot match between presidential hopefuls Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton. Bartlett said 85 percent of unaffiliated voters were choosing the Democratic ballot.
Lower down, the Democratic ballot also features the heated gubernatorial race between Lt. Gov. Beverly Perdue and State Treasurer Richard Moore, who have been locked in a multimillion-dollar campaign for months.
On the Republican side, an equally narrow race for governor has placed Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory and state Sen. Fred Smith in a competition that’s too close to call.
Elsewhere on the statewide ballot, Tuesday’s primary will select a Democrat who will likely challenge Republican Sen. Elizabeth Dole in the November election.
The two leading candidates in that race, state Sen. Kay Hagan and Chapel Hill entrepreneur Jim Neal, are strikingly different, but both are ending their campaigns with nearly identical schedules, with stops in Charlotte throughout the morning. Each planned to greet voters at Greenville Memorial AME Zion Church, with scheduled stops separated by only an hour.
