HILLSBOROUGH - A candidate for an unresolved seat on the Orange County Board of Commissioners criticized his opponent Monday for asking for a runoff election.

"I find it unfortunate that Mr. Allison has chosen to reject the clear result of the largest primary turnout in Orange County history," Steve Yuhasz wrote in a news release. Yuhasz also said the new election would be expensive for the county.

His opponent in the scheduled June 24 runoff election, Leo Allison, said he had expected the criticism.

"I understand Mr. Yuhasz wants to go ahead and have a free ride, but I don't think it's fair to the voters to have only 37 percent of them pick the candidate for this next seat," Allison said.

Yuhasz was the top vote-getter among four Democratic candidates in last week's primary, with 37 percent of the vote, but he needed 40 percent to avoid a runoff. Allison got 28 percent.

With no Republicans having filed to run in District 2, the results of the runoff will decide the seat.