George Gilbert, Guilford's election director on running unopposed
Cue the laugh track.
In today's N&R, we ran a story on the high number of unopposed candidates in Guilford County races this late in the filing period for the 2008 election.
Yesterday I spoke with George Gilbert, director of the Guilford County Board of Elections, on how things look so far in his experience handling elections. And he's a jokester. Between all that, he also had some insights about why this filing period looks the way it does now.
On candidates running unopposed:
"They tend to win when they’re running unopposed," Gilbert said.
He said that a well-known or well-financed opponent is the one who would typically knock off an incumbent running for re-election, or the incumbent recently pulled a bad move in the public eye.
Incumbents also have an upper hand because of the timing in the decade for the election. A new census happens with each new decade, and new districts are drawn after those 10-year periods to reflect population changes.
"(Voters) are familiar with ... the names that they have been voting for or against," Gilbert said, "and name recognition is obviously a big part of elections. And that's one of the main powers and advantages of incumbency, is that people know the name."
He said that each filing period is different. Sometimes candidates rush to file on the first day, sometimes they trickle in over time, and other filing periods are slammed on the final day (which is at high noon Friday, folks. So get moving if you want to run for office). So, if someone wants to file, who should they call?
"They can call here if they have any questions," Gilbert said. "More importantly, they need to be calling their potential political backers."
And that noon deadline. That's the real deal.
"They have to file by noon Friday," Gilbert said, "and that, a lot of people don’t know. Don’t come in here at five minutes after twelve. And if they mail it, and it didn’t get here Friday morning, too bad. It’s got to be in the office, in our hands, by noon Friday. Getting caught in a traffic jam or running out of gas, that’s not going to matter."
Here's the Guilford elections site, with more information on filing and candidates.