Looking down the road, Bryan County residents may only have one election to deal with in 2013, Elections Superintendent Sam Davis said.
The only election scheduled to take place in 2013 is a municipal election in Richmond Hill, Davis said. Up for grabs are the mayor’s seat, held by Harold Fowler, along with two council seats currently held by Russ Carpenter and Van Hunter, according to City Manager Chris Lovell.
It is expected that Fowler, Carpenter and Hunter will seek re-election, though they have not announced their intentions. Anyone wishing to run for the open municipal seats must qualify between Aug. 19-26.
Richmond Hill voters must register by Oct. 7 for the general election on Nov. 5 according to the Secretary of State’s website. Davis said there will be three weeks of early voting and one Saturday voting for that election.
No national, state or county elections are scheduled in the coming year, Davis said. And though there will likely be many municipal elections across the state, the city of Pembroke won’t have another election until 2014.
Davis added special elections are a possibility but said those likely won’t happen either.
“Both the school board and the county have the right to call for special election, but I haven’t heard of either one doing that,” he added. “So I don’t anticipate them doing that, but there is no way of knowing.”
Davis said while elections staff will still be busy with training and work, there will be no major changes made like those in 2012.
“It’s going to hopefully be a quiet year,” Davis said, “It’ll give the registrar’s office a chance to get everything updated as far as who’s registered (to vote).”

Read more in the Jan. 2 edition of the News.