News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
At least three school board elections will be partisan in the Upper Cumberland next year.
Under a new state law, Republicans and Democrats could put in requests to election commissions for partisan elections. White County Administrator of Elections Dorcas Marcum said that both parties have requested primaries in White County.
“If they’re running as an independent, they’ll still be on the August ballot,” Marcum said. ” Let me make that clear. They don’t have to be a Democrat or a Republican they can still run as an independent and still be on the August general ballot. They still have the same qualifying deadline as the Republican and Democratic candidates.”
Marcum said that the districts up for election are Districts 5, 6, and 7.
Putnam Administrator of Elections Michelle Honeycutt said that the Republican party requested a primary, but not from the Democratic party.
“It’s been a little since we’ve never done this before,” Honeycutt said. “And just having a new deadline and we had to notify each party to let them know they had the opportunity and when the deadline is. So what we’ll have to do now is we’re adding this office to our list of all our offices for the May primary. When we issue petitions starting next Monday, the school board will be ones that we will issue for, and we will issue for the Republicans, and anyone that wants to run as independent we’ll also be picking up during that time. And their deadlines will be the same, February the 17th at noon. So we even the independents that want to run on the school board must pick up during that time frame.”
Overton Administrator of Elections Craig Story said that his office received only a Republic request as well. Jackson AOE Drew McMillan said that his office did not receive a request.
