BAYBORO — Two-term Oriental Commissioner Candy Bohmert won re-election Tuesday when her name was pulled from a small purple flower pot.
The drawing by Elections Board member Ed Credle broke a 246-vote tie between Bohmert and another incumbent, Barb Venturi, for the final board seat.
The candidates remained tied after each received one provisional vote during the Election Board’s canvass at the Pamlico County Courthouse. A second provisional vote was disqualified because the voter did not live in the Oriental town limits.
State statute allows the Pamlico Elections Board free rein in breaking a tie. In 2005, it did so by drawing a name from a hat. This time, Venturi was the only one in the room wearing a hat, and she declined to give it up.
So Elections Director Lisa Bennett found a small flower pot, which board Chairman Martin Feinber held while Credle drew the name.
“I was hoping the provisionals would get it settled,” Bohmert said. “It is better when the voters decide, but in this case the voters decided to hire six of us and there were only five seats.”
Venturi said she had enjoyed her one term on the board, and said she would not disappear from activity in Oriental.
She has headed the long-range planning for the town; a job she said will take another two years of work.
And since the 2005 election, she gained another public job, as chairman of the Pamlico Community College Foundation.
“I’ve got lots to keep me busy, so in a way, this (loss) wasn’t the worst thing that could happen,” she said.
Bohmert joins new Oriental board members Kathy Kellam and David Cox, along with incumbent Nancy Inger and current Mayor Sherrill Styron. New Oriental Mayor Bill Sage attended the Tuesday canvass.
Sage and the new board are scheduled to be sworn in at the Dec. 4 Oriental commissioners’ meeting.
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