Since Friday, July 5 fell on the day after a holiday and the day before a weekend, a lot of area businesses and government offices saw very little activity – however, for the Guilford County Elections Office, there was a lot of action because July 5 was the first day of the candidate filing period for municipal races in the county.
Guilford County Board of Elections Director Charlie Collicutt said that, as filing periods go, there are usually a lot of candidates who put their name in the mix on the first day, as well as a surge of names on the last day.
Collicutt said on Friday that he sent some of his Greensboro staff over to the High Point office. He said that, since there are City Council races and a mayoral contest in that High Point this year, but not in Greensboro, he knew the High Point office might need some shoring up. He said it did turn out to be the office with the most activity since there were a good number of candidates filing to run in High Point and running for the Jamestown Town Council.
On Friday, candidates also filed to run for offices in Summerfield and Oak Ridge.
“I would say it’s been steady,” Collicutt said of the candidate traffic on the first day of filing.
He added that it’s unusual for the first day of filing to be wedged between a holiday and the weekend.
“The law is that we do it on the first Friday,” he said, adding that his office did have some people on vacation – but, he noted, he still had plenty of staff to handle the filings.
The candidate filing period ends at noon on Friday, July 19.
