home

O

riental’s polls stayed open an hour later than originally planned Tuesday. That’s because the polls were an hour late in opening, due to the pollworkers’ chief judge not showing up to start the machines. To compensate, voters at the firestation on Straight Road were allowed to vote up until 8:30pm.

The voting room at the fire station. On the door coming in from outside was an official notice drawn up by the Elections Board, extending the voting period by an hour.

When the votes were counted, Oriental voters who cast ballots in the Democratic presidential primary made for a closer race than it had been in North Carolina at large. Here are the results from that and a few other races that were decided on Tuesday:

In the Oriental precinct, Barack Obama won 266-236 (51.4% to 45.6%) over Hillary Clinton. In Pamlico County, the vote was 1,330 for Obama, 1,185 for Clinton or approximately 50.2% for Obama and 44.75% for Clinton. (MIke Gravel collected 51 votes for 1.93% and No Preference got 82 votes or 3%.)

Tandy Theakston spent many hours outside the polling place, attempting some last minute voter persuasion.

In the Democratic primary for governor, Beverly Purdue (who is from New Bern) won 72% of the vote in Pamlico County as well as in Oriental. Richard Moore got about a quarter of the vote here. Statewide, Purdue won — though not as overwhelmingly — with 56% of the vote.

And as happened in the rest of the 3rd Congressional district, Oriental Democrats chose Craig Weber over Marshall Adame as their candidate. Weber won with 57% of the vote here.

Signs of the day along Straight Road.

GOP voters in Pamlico County gave presumed Presidential nominee John McCain almost 77 % of the vote. MIke Huckabee got 10.8 , Ron Paul 5 %, Alan Keyes 2.8 and No Preference, 4.3%.

In Pamlico’s GOP primary for the 3rd District Congressional seat, challenger Joe McLaughlin snared 51.8 percent of the vote over long-time Congressman Walter Jones who got 48.2%. But across the 17 county district, Jones prevailed (59.5 % to 40.5%) and will once again be on the ballot in November.

Republican voters here bucked the trend in the gubernatorial primary as well. Statewide, Pat McCrory won 46 percent of the vote to Fred Smith’s 37%. But in Pamlico Fred Smith got 64% to McCrory’s 17 %.

In the match-up for the NC House district 3, Norman Sanderson took 78 % of the vote over Renee Sisk in Oriental. Across the district, he won 58%-42%.

Finally, in the one contested Pamlico County race of the day, incumbent county commissioner Roy Brinson turned back a challenge from fellow Democrat Rhoda Moore Sawyer, 264 to 176 votes.

Across the county, turnout was 38.2 percent. In the Oriental precinct turnout was between 40 and 50 percent.

And at the end of the day… While voters continued to come to the fire station, Mark Weinheimer and Luann Parrins lowered the flag from the pole and folded it. It’s something they’ve been doing for years, Luann says, part of their daily routine after their work day ends at their sail loft next door..

Posted Wednesday May 7, 2008 by Melinda Penkava