After nearly 24 years on the Mount Airy Board of Education — and six previous election campaigns — one board member may be facing her toughest challenge to re-election this year, and she doesn’t even have an opponent.
Wendy Carriker, who was appointed to the District D seat in June 1996, winning re-election that fall as well as every four years afterward, is being forced to canvass the city school board district for 275 signatures of registered voters on a petition supporting her candidacy, or her name will be left off the ballot.
That’s one consequence of a 2019 move by the Surry County Board of Commissioners, in which it approved a request by the local Republican Party to make all school board elections in Surry County partisan in nature.
Those who are not affiliated with a recognized political party must embark on the petition drive in order to get their names on the fall ballot, while those who are running as a party member only have to file to run and pay a small elections fee. If more than one person affiliated with the same party files to run, then those candidates square off in a late-winter primary.
This year’s primary is March 3, which also is Carriker’s deadline to have the petition turned in.
Further complicating matters for the long-time board member is that local elections officials initially told her she was required to file a petition with 1.5% of the school district’s voters — which would be 106 signatures. She learned Friday the required figure is actually 4%, meaning she had just 11 days from that disclosure to collect an additional 169 signatures.
“In December I turned in 125 signatures,” she said, explaining that since candidates declaring for a partisan run for office had a Dec. 20 deadline to file, she thought that would be the best time to have her petition completed and turned in. “Of those 125, only 114 were qualified.”
She explained in a few cases, well-meaning people who signed were discovered to live outside the school board district, and in two cases, the signature was illegible.
Nearly two months after she thought all was well with the seat, election officials contacted her and said she wasn’t even halfway to the requirement.
Michella Huff, director of the Surry County Board of Elections, explained that this is the first time local school boards have run in partisan elections, and there’s some confusion with what parts of state code apply to those elections.
Initially, she and those in her office believed the state law regarding partisan municipal elections applied, thus Carriker would need to submit a petition with signatures of 1.5% of eligible voters. However, after she turned in that petition and Huff’s office turned it in to state officials, it hit a snag.
Last week, state elections officials informed Huff that state law considers partisan school board elections — even for school districts within a city — under the same rules which regulate countywide elections. That requires 4% of eligible voters to sign.
The situation traces back to April 2019, when the Surry County commissioners made a somewhat surprising move by approving the GOP request to switch the school boards in the county to partisan elections. The board made the vote without previously consulting any school officials from Surry County, Mount Airy or Elkin.
While local GOP Chairman Mark Jones was listed on that agenda to make a presentation to the board, there was no indication the commissioners would take public comment, nor consider a vote the night they approved the measure.
Despite widespread criticism of the move by school board members in all three districts, the board did not reconsider the vote. Shortly thereafter, the General Assembly approved the request, making it law.
Local elections officials aren’t sure what happens if Carriker can’t get enough signatures by March 3.
Before school board elections became partisan, if a board vacancy occurred the remaining school board members would select a person to fill the seat.
Huff said now, if a board seat becomes vacant, the local chairman of whichever political party with which the board member or candidate was affiliated will get to select a replacement.
“You don’t have a chair with an unaffiliated party. … I do not see how any political party could get involved,” she said, adding that she would expect the old system — of school board members selecting a person to fill the seat — would be in force in such an instance. “I don’t see where unaffiliated would have any other option.”
For her part, Carriker said she’s soldiering on, trying to meet the latest signature threshold by March 3.
“I have very good friends who are helping and have petitions out,” she said. Since Friday she said they’ve collected about 60 more signatures, but a couple of those, it turns out, might not pass muster because the people signing may not have realized they don’t live in the city school district.
So she’s trying to go well over the 275 level, in case others are disallowed. With such a tight time frame, she really can’t afford to take any chances, she said.
“If I had known Dec. 20 I needed more signatures, it would have been a little bit easier than in finding out the final week,” she said.
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Source: https://www.mtairynews.com
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