Early voting to begin for Cary council and Wake County sheriff runoff contests
For parts of Wake County, the primary election season isn’t over.
On July 26, candidates for two seats on the Cary Town Council, and two Democratic candidates for Wake County sheriff will square off again.
In Cary, incumbent Jack Smith in District C and Ken George, who placed second for the at-large seat, called for a runoff after losing in the May 17 non-partisan municipal election. The winners of those races failed to win the necessary threshold of 50% of the votes cast to avoid a runoff election.
Meanwhile, current Wake County Sheriff Gerald Baker requested a runoff in the Democratic primary for the position against Willie Rowe.
The two were among six Democratic candidates running for sheriff. Whoever wins the July 26 runoff will face Donnie Harrison in the November general election. Harrison, the former sheriff, won the Republican primary with 80% of votes.
Early voting for both races runs from July 7-23.
Wake County sheriff
Baker called for a runoff after winning 24% of the vote compared to Rowe, who got just under 30%, the threshhold for that partisan race.
He has been sheriff since 2018 after serving 28 years in the office as a deputy and sergeant. He won four years ago, with support from the Latino community and others who backed his opposition to a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement program that lets sheriff’s deputies act as federal immigration agents, the News & Observer previously reported.
Baker unseated Harrison with 54% of the vote in 2018.
Four years earlier, Rowe, 62, ran for sheriff against Harrison and lost. He retired from the Wake County Sheriff’s Office in 2013, where he was a major.
Cary candidates
Voters in Cary, including a portion of the town in northeast Chatham County will elect one leader for the town’s District C and one at-large member for Cary Town Council. All seven council members serve the town for four years in staggered terms.
At-large: There are two at-large seats on the Town Council. Lori Bush, a lead technician at Cisco Systems, is serving her third term in the second at-large seat.
Ed Yerha, 72, currently holds the other at-large position but finished third in the race, behind Carissa Johnson, who had over 10,000 votes, and George who had 9,382 votes.
Johnson, 49, is a product marketing manager with IT company Axcient in Cary. George, 64, works with NetSmart, Inc. in IT services.
District C: The area covers the southern part of Cary. Smith is running to keep his seat against Renee Miller, a Republican. Miller finished first in the May 17 race with 2,535 votes, or 28.5%, just 45 more ahead of Smith.
Smith was first elected to the Cary Town Council in 1989 and has served eight terms. He moved to the town in 1986 after securing a job in Research Triangle Park.
A registered unaffiliated official, Smith is a retired Army captain and Vietnam-era veteran. He is currently the longest serving elected official in Cary’s history.
Miller, 57, has lived in Cary for 12 years and worked for GE Capital before starting her own human resource management consulting firm and also serves as a chief judge for the Wake County Board of Elections.
Voting sites
Polls will open at 8 a.m. July 7 at two locations in Wake County and one site in Chatham County for the 3,500 Cary voters there. All polls will close each weekday at 7:30 p.m.
On the final day of early voting, July 23, polls will be open from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m.
In Cary, voters can go to the Herbert Young Community Center on 101 Wilkinson Ave.
Chatham County voters can also vote at the county’s Board of Elections office at 984 Suite D Thompson Street in Pittsboro for the Cary runoff.
The Wake County Board of Elections on 1200 N. New Hope Road in Raleigh will also be a voting site for the sheriff’s race and the Cary runoff.
Voters can find more information through the WakeVotesEarly.com interactive map for more times and details about voting sites.
During early voting, voters can register and vote at the same time if they missed the July 1 registration deadline.
For the July 26 election day, polling places will be open from 6:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. Voter registration status and precint locations can be found on ReadytoVote.com.
This story was originally published July 6, 2022 at 2:28 PM.