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2010 Elections
Links: Judges and Non-partisan
2010 Election Page
The primary phase of the 2010 election is now over. The last "i" to be dotted was the Democratic candidate for Senator, now decided in favor of Elaine Marshall. The forced runoff primary still rankles, and, if you're in the mood for a rant, polkdemocrats.com has one, here.
What follows on this page is all the information that Polk County Democrats need to participate in the 2010 election cycle, in one place and as complete and accurate as we can make it.
Election Date
November 2, 2010.
Polling Places
Click here for the Precinct Polling Places.
Election Ballot
This will be provided when it becomes available.
Offices Up For Election
The offices listed below are up for election this year:
US Senator for North Carolina, with incumbent Republican Richard Burr winning his primary easily. He will face Democrat Elaine Marshall (Website here).
(See a footnote about this seat, here.)
US Congressman for the 11th District, with incumbent Democrat Heath Shuler facing Republican Jeff Miller. Heath Shuler's website is here.
NC Senator for the 48th District, consisting of Polk and Henderson Counties, plus that part of Buncombe County south of I-40. Incumbent Republican Tom Apodaca is facing Democrat Chris Dixon (Website here.).
NC Representative for the 113th District, consisting of Polk and Transylvania Counties, and part of Henderson County. Incumbent Republican David Guice is running unopposed.
District Attorney for District 29B, with incumbent Republican Jeff Hunt having no Democratic challenger and running unopposed.
Polk County Board of Commissioners, with three seats up for election, those of Democratic incumbent Ray Gasperson, and Independent incumbents Tommy Melton and Warren Watson. All are seeking re-election.
Democrats Ray Gasperson (828-894-8508, e-mail), Margaret Johnson (828-894-0539, e-mail), and Benny Smith (828-894-5156) prevailed in our primary and will be on the ballot. Be sure to support all three during the campaign, and of course vote for them enthusiastically.
The Republican slate for Commissioner is a repeat of 2008: Tom Pack, Ted Owens, and David Moore.
Independent incumbents Tommy Melton and Warren Watson have submitted the required number of signatures and their names will also be on the November ballot as unaffiliated candidates.
Polk County Sheriff, with incumbent Democrat Don Hill facing Republican Nathan Shields.
Polk County Clerk of Court, with incumbent Democrat Charlene Owens, deservedly, running unopposed.
Polk County Board of Education, with four seats up for election: those of Democrats Geoff Tennant and Jim Cowan, and Republicans Judy Jackson and Sherry Page, all of whom are running for re-election. Democrat Suzanne Metcalf is challenging Jim Cowan, also a Democrat, for the Tryon seat; the others are running unopposed.
Candidates for Soil and Water, with Democratic incumbents Charles D. Edwards and Richard Smith running for re-election.
Court of Appeals Judges, with five seats up for election. Information on these races should be considered unofficial until the sample ballot is released.
These are non-partisan races, and so the political affiliation of the candidates will not be on the ballot. We will identify each candidate's party affiliation when it is known.
The first seat is the one now held by Robert C. Hunter, who will be opposed by Barbara Jackson.
The second is the seat now held by Sanford Steelman, who is running unopposed.
The third is the seat now held by Republican Ann Marie Calabria, who only barely won the second nomination; the top vote-getter was Jane Gray, affiliation unknown.
The fourth seat is the one now held by Rick Elmore, who will be opposed by Steven Walker
The last is the seat now held by Martha Geer, who will be opposed by Dean R. Poirer.
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Footnotes
The Curse of Sam Ervin Our current senior Senator Richard Burr holds one of the most interesting seats in the US Senate. It's the seat once held by the legendary Sam Ervin, who was the face of North Carolina during the Nixon Watergate Hearings, and who held the seat for 20 of the most turbulent and important years ever: 1954-1974. He began his career with Senate investigative work that led to the downfall of Joseph McCarthy, and ended it with the downfall of Richard Nixon. He was from Morganton, and always called himself a "country lawyer," but everybody knew better. Sam Ervin was a giant in the Senate, but a funny thing happened to his seat when he finally left it in 1974, 36 years ago: no one since has held the seat for more than one term, and some pretty bizarre things have happened along the way. Ervin was succeeded by Robert B. Morgan, best known to his family, who was of course defeated for his second term by John P. East in 1980. Things worked out pretty well for East until 1986, the final year of his term, when he announced that he was not running for re-election, and then put an exclamation point on that by killing himself. The Republican governor at the time, Jim Martin, appointed Jim Broyhill to the seat for the few months left in East's term, thinking it would give him a leg up for election in his own right in November. But the curse continued: Broyhill was defeated in the fall by Terry Sanford, thus becoming one of the shortest-serving Senators of all time. Sanford was never happy in the Senate, he was much more successful as governor, but unwisely decided to tempt the curse and run for re-election anyway -- and was beaten (narrowly) by Lauch Faircloth, of uncertain memory. Faircloth was a lifelong Democrat who switched parties and won in 1992 as a Republican, and he was amply rewarded for the perfidy by getting beat (narrowly) by John Edwards in 1988. The curse of Sam Ervin has been the least of Edwards' problems, but he carried it on by declining a second term, leaving the door open for -- Richard Burr. Here's to you, Mister Sam, let's hope you're not done. The North Carolina Election Runoff System There are a lot of good things about Democracy, and the good legislators of the Tar Heel state had their hearts in the right place when they enacted their election law, but it's hard to be a fan of their runoff procedure. Here's how it works. In races where there are more than two candidates, the possibility that none of the candidates will achieve 50% of the vote is very real, in fact probable, particularly in primaries. Simply awarding the win to the one with the most votes would mean basing the election on plurality rather than majority, and risk electing or nominating someone who received a very small percentage of the vote. If there are many candidates, the plurality winner could have in the order of 30% of the votes, meaning that more than 2/3 of the voters had voted for somebody else. What the NC law does to prevent that is, in essence, whittle down the field to two and have a runoff that forces a majority decision. There is a provision in the law that helps, since the threshold for avoiding a recount isn't 50% (which would mean recounts for all but the most lopsided multi-candidate races), but rather a more manageable 40%. That solves a lot of the problems, but it introduces another one. That problem is that it eliminates most of the runoffs, but not all. It seems that, one way or another, every election cycle, some race fails of the 40% threshold and forces a runoff. If, as this time, the runoff is for a statewide office, that means all 100 counties must assemble their entire election armada and do it all over again, to decide one winner out of a thousand. That's 100 counties times who knows how many precincts times who knows how many poll workers per precinct, sitting there all day, for the handful of voters who will pay any attention to the runoff at all. A grotesquely small number of voters will choose the winner -- actually a mockery of democracy -- and the taxpayers of North Carolina will foot the bill, in the order of $3 million. No, change the law. Award the winner by plurality if necessary, accepting the risk of a low-percentage win as a bargain for avoiding the runoff. Two very good presidents were elected exactly that way: Abraham Lincoln and Harry Truman.
