This past Tuesday was election day for many communities in North Carolina, including Carteret County. One thing that never ceases to amaze me is the fact that on non-presidential election days, hardly ANY voters turnout. I guess voters in Carteret County just don’t feel like participating in local elections is important. When in fact it’s quite the contrary. Our local officials are the part of government that can and will affect our lives much more directly than anyone in Washington.

These elected officials make the decisions as to what types of new businesses can enter our communities and where they can be located. They are the ones that will introduce new ordinances that you may like or dislike. So next election please get out and vote. Out of 19,465 registered voters in Carteret County only 3,884 ballots were cast. I’m sorry, but that’s downright pitiful. So when ordinances and other legislation gets passed, changed or repealed that makes you unhappy, I hope you’re not one of the 15,581 NON-VOTERS that didn’t make it out this round.

Okay onto some of the results. As I reviewed the unofficial results I couldn’t help but shake my head, and then start laughing. I thought I was reading some kind of April Fool’s joke or something. Take Cape Carteret for instance. Well congratulations Mayor Harkless. Mr. Harkless slaughtered the write-in candidates with 92.2% of the vote. And a big congratulations to the Commissioners of Cape Carteret as well. There were 3 seats at stake and only THREE people running for them. 11 people wrote-in candidates. I can’t help but wonder why whoever they wrote in didn’t just get on the ballot. They likely would have had a shot.

Emerald Isle was in the same situation. Mayor Art Schools ran unopposed. Of the 153 votes in town, he had all but 1 of them. Congratulations Mayor Schools. For Emerald Isle Commissioners there were 3 seats up and 3 people ran. There were 11 write-in votes. What a race huh?

Indian Beach had 3 commissioner seats up and 3 people ran. Zero write-in votes here though.

Morehead City’s race for Mayor was no more interesting. Mayor Jerry Jones received 238 of the 245 votes. 7 votes went to write-in candidate(s). There were 2 Commissioner seats up and once again 2 people were on the ballot. Some real nail biters here folks.

To me it feels and looks like there’s no real choice as to who gets elected to these positions. Which is fine if everyone is completely happy and satisfied with the way things are being run in their municipality. But that is certainly not the case. Because I’ve heard folks in each one of the municipalities complain about things their elected officials could fix. But do they vote? Do they try and replace some of these folks that are pretty much given a free seat in our local governments by getting on the ballot themselves?

Personally I would like to see some younger blood getting on these ballots and maybe making Carteret County and the communities within it a little more progressive. What would you like to see?