On Friday, July 21, right after the noon filing deadline for Guilford County municipal elections, Guilford County Elections Director Charlie Collicutt said that a relatively laid-back filing period turned into a very active time that transformed some otherwise uncontested races into contested ones and gave voters more choices in other ones.

“It was fairly slow until today,” Collicutt said of the two-week filing period for races that will fill seats on city councils and town councils in the county – with the notable exception of the Greensboro City Council, which doesn’t have any seats up for grabs in 2023.

“I wouldn’t say we had more from today than from all the previous days combined, but it was a lot,” he said.

He added that, in some races, the late entries meant contenders for people who may have started to think they would be in uncontested races.

That was true of the Summerfield mayor’s race, for instance – where current Summerfield Mayor Tim Sessoms got some last-minute competition from Linda Wendelken.

On Friday, the race for the three open seats on the Summerfield Town Council also got more suitors.

Races in High Point and Pleasant Garden also saw on influx of candidates on July 21 just before the noon deadline, as did other races in the county.

Collicutt said it’s not unusual for his two elections offices – one in Greensboro and one in High Point – to see a flurry of activity on the last day.

“Sometimes they want to survey the race and file if a race is uncontested,” he said.  “Sometimes, they may want to see who else is running.”

Now that the candidate filing period is officially closed, Collicutt said, his office is doing things like preliminary ballot layout work and officially notifying those candidates who will face opponents in the primary this fall rather than just in the general election.

 

 

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