Wayne election overall
By Ethan Smith
Published in News on November 9, 2016 9:58 AM
Wayne County's election went smoothly, with no reports of issues at the polls and all results rolling in shortly after 9 p.m. Tuesday, board of elections officials said.
Nearly 70 percent of all eligible voters in Wayne County cast a ballot during the 2016 election.
"We've had an awesome day of voting today and the elections have went fantastic," said Board of Elections Director Dane Beavers. "We're very excited about the turnout. We've had very little problems, just a few people that showed up in the wrong precinct, and those kind of small things we can fix easily."
Beavers said results came in rapidly because of a new process implemented by officials.
During the March primary, the chief judge of each precinct had to bring in the results themselves after the precinct closed.
This year, precincts sent designated runners to the board of elections, allowing results to come in a full two hours earlier than they did in the primary election while other precinct officials stayed back and closed up the voting sites.
There was a higher voter turnout than there was in 2012, also, Beavers said.
"There were no issues," Beavers said. "We had a very good 17 days of early voting and I would say at 98 percent of precincts there were no long lines. People were able to vote quickly."
All precincts were able to close on time at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Beavers said.
Nearly half of all eligible voters in Wayne County cast ballots during early voting and officials beefed up the number of check-in stations at every precinct to ensure a quick and painless voting process.
"We had no delays or issues with results coming in tonight," Beavers said. "The process overall of getting results in quicker was a huge success."
No members of the general public were at the Board of Elections on North William Street Tuesday night to watch the numbers come in on the screen in the conference room at the building.
"A lot of this success is a direct reflection of Dane (Beavers) and his team, and they hard work they've done to get everybody organized and get everybody trained," said Wayne County Board of Elections Chairman Doug Wiggins. "Early voting went well, there were basically no lines except for the last hour of the last day of early voting. He has done a marvelous job and I think a lot of the success goes to their hard work and their organization."
Wiggins said the process of casting a ballot during election day was expedient and there were no lines to hold people up.
"It was pretty much walk up and vote," Wiggins said. "The longest line I saw all day long was five people in line and they were not there more than four or five minutes."
Overall, Wayne County went with the nation and picked Donald John Trump for president, giving him 54.47 percent of the county's vote compared to 42.84 percent going for Hillary Rodham Clinton. Gary Johnson received 1.88 percent of the county vote.
Wayne County picked Richard Burr for United States Senate, throwing him 55.06 percent of the vote compared to 42.38 percent for Deborah Ross. Libertarian candidate Sean Haugh got 2.57 percent of the county's vote.
In the state governor's race, which is still too close to decisively call statewide, Wayne County gave incumbent Pat McCrory 55.34 percent of its vote compared to 43.31 percent for Attorney General Roy Cooper.
For the U.S. House of Representatives District 7 seat, the county picked David Rouzer, giving him 57.45 percent of its vote compared to 42.55 percent for J. Wesley Casteen.
Dan Forest got Wayne County's vote for N.C. Lieutenant Governor, getting 55.63 percent of the county vote compared to Linda Coleman's 42.5 percent share.
Buck Newton carried the county for Attorney General, getting 53.67 percent of the vote compared to Josh Stein's 46.33 percent.
Wayne Aycock, Ray Mayo, Ed Cromartie, John Bell, Joe Gurley, Bill Pate and Joe Daughtery all retained their seats on the Wayne County Board of Commissioners, each man running against nobody.
Will Bland unseated Arnold Ogden Jones II from his District 8-B Superior Court Judge position by a wide berth, getting 63.75 percent of the county's vote compared to Jones' 36.25 percent.
Raymond Smith Jr. won the at-large seat on the Wayne County Board of Education, getting 52.14 percent of the vote compared to Ven Faulk's 47.06 percent.
Len Henderson was elected to the District 2 seat of the Board of Elections, competing against nobody.
Patricia Burden won the District 3 seat race for the Board of Education, getting 59.8 percent of the vote compared to Trebor Jackson's 39.78 percent.
All 30 out of 30 precincts in Wayne County were tabulated and reported before 9:15 p.m. Tuesday.