Nine people in Buncombe County are running for a seat in one of the shortest and strangest races of election season.
The race for the District 3 seat on the Buncombe County Board of Commissioners, formerly occupied by now-Chair Amanda Edwards, kicked off in early December, but the final decision on who will vote in the election was solidified last week.
The vote takes place on Dec. 18 and will involve around 125 members of the Buncombe County Democratic Party’s executive committee.
Because the seat was vacated by a Democrat, the Buncombe County Democratic Party has the authority, per state law, to select a candidate to fill the vacant seat.
Once the Democratic Party votes on which candidate it would like to appoint, it goes to Buncombe County Commissioners for a final vote.
According to Kristen Robinson, vice chair of the Buncombe County Democratic Party, commissioners are not able to reject the recommendation unless there were procedural issues with the appointment process.
“They are not allowed to just turn it down because they don't like who the person is,” she told BPR in a phone interview.
For this election, the final decision was made on who would vote “after much, much consultation with lawyers,” Robinson said, due to the complexities of redistricting.
The last time the party went through this process was in January 2022 when Democrats held a special election to fill N.C. Rep. Susan Fisher’s vacant seat with Caleb Rudow.
This time around, a 2023 change in district lines is what made the process so confusing, Robinson said.
“Some of the confusion at the beginning, when we started to do this process, was do we follow the old map lines or the new map lines,” she said.
Initially, the party thought it could base the election on the 2022 district lines under which Edwards was elected. But after consultation with lawyers, it became clear that candidates and votes would need to represent the newly drawn District 3 lines, Robinson explained.
“So since Amanda Edwards was elected to represent District 3, we have to fill that District 3 seat even though the district map lines have been completely redrawn and everybody's kind of in a different seat,” she added.
Geographically, this means that eligible candidates must live closer to downtown Asheville, Woodfin and Biltmore Forest, rather than in Leicester, Woodfin and Weaverville (the latter being the region that Edwards was originally elected to represent).
It also affects who is legally allowed to vote, Robinson said. Some people who were originally slated to vote in the election are no longer eligible due to the nuances of redistricting.
People eligible to vote include members of the Democratic Party’s executive committee, including elected officials, precinct chairs and precinct vice chairs. See the full list.
For votes that represent a specific precinct, each vote is weighted differently. The weighting is determined by how many Democrats in the precinct voted for the state’s Democratic governor candidate.
“So in 2020, our numbers were based on how many votes Governor Cooper got. In 2024, they are now weighted on how many governor-elect Josh Stein got,” Robinson said.
“It's all based on how well your precinct performed with that Democratic Governor's race. It's done like that countrywide,” she added.
The Democratic Party has a special process for how it will run its elections, informed by state law. On Dec. 18, the executive committee will hold rounds of voting until a candidate receives a majority vote. Each round, the candidate with the lowest number of votes is removed as an option.
If there are enough rounds of voting to narrow down the slate to two candidates, the committee will have to keep voting until someone reaches a 50% majority, Robinson added.
“Hopefully it doesn't take that long. But we shall see,” she said.
The following candidates have announced their intent to run. Find out more about them on the local Democratic Party’s website.
- Nina Tovish
- Aaron Sarver
- Drew Ball
- Doug Baughman
- Janet Canfield
- Sabrina Delk
- Lauren Edgerton
- Kevan Frazier
- Jay Lively
