With four days left in 2021, it’s a given that it will be 2022 before the voters know what is going on with the Greensboro City Council elections.

A year ago it appeared that the Greensboro City Council elections would be held on the normal schedule, with the primary on Oct. 5 and the general election on Nov. 2, and the new City Council would be sworn into office in December.

But 2021 was a year of stops and starts as far as the Greensboro City Council elections go, and the North Carolina Supreme Court ruling on Wednesday, Dec. 8, 2021 added more confusion.  That NC Supreme Court ruling suspended filing for all elections in the state, including the Greensboro City Council election, until lawsuits filed over the redrawn congressional and state legislative districts could be heard.  Despite the fact that the Greensboro City Council elections will in no way be affected by the outcome of the lawsuits, the NC Supreme Court suspended filing and delayed the primary from March 8 to May 17.

What the NC Supreme Court didn’t do is a set a date for the filing to resume or set a date for the municipal general elections in the state. 

It was already confusing with the March 8 primary and then the City Council general election to follow either on April 26 or May 17, depending on whether there was a runoff primary in any of the 14 congressional districts or in the statewide US Senate primary.

The City Council general election was to be held on the date of the runoff primary, whatever that date was.

However, the NC Supreme Court in its Dec. 8 ruling was silent on when the runoff primary for the May 17 primary would be held and presumably the date of the Greensboro City Council general election.

So going into 2022 there are three categories of candidates for the Greensboro City Council election, those who filed Dec. 6, Dec. 7 or Dec. 8; those who have announced they are running but have not filed; and those who haven’t announced, perhaps haven’t made up their minds yet, but who will file once filing is reopened.  It is not uncommon for people who are considering a run for office to wait and see who files to run for the seat before they make up their minds about running.

No one in any of the three categories knows when the general election will be held, but one thing that is known is that the current members of the City Council elected to four-year terms in 2017 will continue to serve until the new members of the City Council can be sworn in after the 2022 general election, whenever that is held.

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