From Staff Reports 

HENDERSONVILLE — State Sen. Tmothy D. “Tim“ Moffitt, R-Hendersonville, filed a bill — within days of receiving a resolution from the Henderson County Board of Commissioners — seeking to switch Henderson County Board of Education elections from nonpartisan to partisan, according to a report in the Feb. 21 edtiion of the Hendersonville Lightning.

The proposed change received strong support from voters in Henderson County, Moffitt said in mid-February, prior to filing the bill, the Lightning reported.

“I would say (calls and emails run) probably 20-to-1 in favor of the bill and most of the folks that are objecting to the bill are not from Henderson County,” Moffitt was quoted by the Lightning as saying. “They’ve relocated to Henderson County from somewhere else.”

Moffitt called the legislation a “straightforward” bill that will make the general election ballot easier to navigate, the Lightning stated. 

“In 2024, four candidates will be facing re-election, including Republicans Kathy Revis and Robert Brooks, Democrat Stacy Caskey and Chair Blair Craven, who is registered unaffiliated.”

The Lightning then quoted Moffitt as saying, “Once we do that, it allows a primary, which means that we won’t have quite as many people in November in the general election as we’ve been faced with because a lot of that’ll be sorted out through the primary process.”

 To that end, the Lightning stated, “A primary will be triggered whenever more candidates from a party file for election than there are open seats. In order to appear on the general election ballot in November, unaffiliated candidates must collect signatures totaling 4 percent of the total registered voters, or 3,470 people.”