There are currently many questions surrounding the appointment of a new County Commissioner here in Cabarrus County after former commissioner Chris Measmer was appointed to the NC Senate, and the Cabarrus County GOP is attempting to install Lamarie Austin-Stripling as his replacement.

Understanding voting procedures and guidelines is essential to ensuring a smooth, transparent process. Below, we provide the information outlined in the “Rules of Procedure for the Cabarrus County Board of Commissioners” to help clarify the steps involved in this necessary appointment.

The board shall use the following procedure to fill a vacancy on the board, except as superseded by the provisions of NCGS § 153A-27. If the member being replaced was elected as a political party’s nominee, then their replacement must belong to the same party.

Upon receipt of notification that the board has a vacancy to fill, the clerk shall make reasonable efforts to notify the public of the vacancy to be filled. The notification will include the following:

1. Posting to the County website notice of the vacancy and instructions for submitting applications.
2. Press release to the newspaper of general circulation and all media outlets included on the County’s sunshine list.
3. Such other reasonable notification designed to notify the public that the board is considering the filling of a vacancy (e.g., social media posts).
4. Email to the local political organization that the departing commissioner was a member of. The executive committee of the local party shall be instructed to provide candidate recommendations to the board for consideration.

All notifications shall advise the public of the vacancy to be filled by the board and shall invite members of the public to submit applications. They shall also advise the public of the meeting date on which the board will consider the applications and proceed to fill the vacancy. Applications shall be made available on the County’s website and in the clerk’s office. To be considered, the application must be received by the clerk’s office no later than 5:00 p.m. on the Friday preceding the meeting where the board will consider the vacancy.

The chair shall open the floor to nominations, whereupon each board member may nominate one possible appointee. Upon the closing of nominations, each board member will vote for the candidates by written ballot on a scale of 1 to X (where “X” equals the total number of nominees and represents the highest number of points).

Each board member must write a number from 1 to X for each candidate, without using the same number twice. Consistent with the general voting policy, each board member must vote for each candidate using this process unless excused by the board due to a conflict of interest disclosed before written ballots are distributed and voting begins.

Voting will be by written ballot. There will be only one vote. Once voting has concluded, each ballot will be checked for compliance and legibility. A board member will be given the chance to correct illegible handwriting.

Only compliant ballots will be counted. All ballots shall be announced publicly.

The candidate with the highest number of points (based on the number of compliant ballots) shall be the appointee and sworn in as soon as possible.

In the event of a tie, the tie shall be broken in favor of the candidate who received the most top scores. If a tie still occurs, the tiebreaker will be the player who received the second-highest score. This tie-break process will continue in the same manner until a winner can be declared.