CHAPEL HILL, N.C. – Election day has come and gone in Orange County, and both Chapel Hill and Carrboro have new mayors, and a couple new town council members as well.
In Chapel Hill, this year’s mayor’s race set new fundraising records, but it wasn’t clear who would win until results started coming in Tuesday night. Jess Anderson ended up being elected the new Chapel Hill mayor in a landslide.
The longtime town council member took an early lead in the race because of her nearly 800 more early votes than her opponent, Adam Searing, and never relinquished it, defeating Searing 58 percent to 40.
Chapel Hill also held elections for four seats on the town council. Amy Ryan, the only incumbent in the race, won reelection. Melissa McCullough and Theodore Nollert were also elected.
The winner of the fourth seat is still uncertain. Elizabeth Sharp currently leads Renuka Soll for the final spot by only 16 votes.
The election results are not yet finalized, as the county still needs to certify them, so Soll could still move into the fourth spot. The race is also close enough that Soll could ask for a recount. But as of now, Elizabeth Sharp has won the last town council seat.
Moving on to Carrboro, Barbara Foushee will become the new mayor, replacing the outgoing Damon Seils. She ran unopposed, and will become the first Black woman mayor in town history.
Three town council seats were also up for grabs in Carrboro. Incumbent Eliazar Posada, who became the first LGBTQ+ elected official in North Carolina last year, was reelected, and newcomers Catherine Fray and Jason Merrill won election to the other two seats.
The election didn’t go completely smoothly. The computer systems at 14 voting sites around Orange County went down around noon yesterday. Those computers are used to look up the name and address of voters, a required step before receiving a ballot
Rachel Raper, the director of Orange County Board of Elections, said that people were still able to vote as normal. Election officials at the affected sites had a list of paper labels that they were able to use instead. Raper also said that the computer systems were back up and running by 2:30 pm.
So while election officials might have been inconvenienced, voters were still able to cast their ballots.
Municipal elections are notorious for their low turnout, and this one was largely no different.
26% of registered voters in Orange County voted on Tuesday. That’s up from 23% in the 2021 municipal elections, but still much lower than 2022’s midterm elections, in which 60% of Orange County voters cast a ballot.
In other counties across the state, even less voters turned out this year. Statewide turnout was less than 16%, slightly lower than the municipal elections two years ago.
All of the new elected officials in Chapel Hill and Carrboro will take office in December. The next round of municipal elections will be in 2025, but there could be a special election to fill Mayor-elect Barbara Foushee’s now empty Carrboro Town Council seat in 2024.