Candidates for municipal elections may start filing at 8 a.m. Monday. Filing ends at noon July 17.

Usually, the filing period begins at noon on the first Friday in July, but the Beaufort County Board of Elections was closed July 3 in observance of the July 4 holiday.
Oct. 2 is the beginning of absentee voting by mail for the Nov. 3 elections. Oct. 9 is the voter registration deadline for the Nov. 3 elections. Early voting for the Nov. 3 elections begins Oct. 22 and ends Oct. 31.
Voters in each of Beaufort County’s seven municipalities will elect council members, commissioners or aldermen, depending upon how their respective governing bodies are constituted. Winners of the general elections in November take office in December.
Washington voters will determine who fills the five seats on the City Council and who will serve as mayor. Council members and the mayor serve two-year terms. Earlier this year, the City Council discussed the possibility of increasing those terms to four years and staggering those four-year terms. The council decided to keep existing format.
Mac Hodges is in his first year as mayor. Council members are Richard Brooks, Larry Beeman, William Pitt and Doug Mercer. Beeman is in his first year as a council member. The others are council veterans.
Currently, there is a vacancy on the council. Bobby Roberson, who had been serving as mayor pro tempore, vacated his seat on the council so he could be hired as interim city manager. It’s unclear if the council will appoint his replacement on the council before the general election this fall.
In Aurora this year, voters will elect two members to the town’s four-member Board of Commissioners. The four-year terms of commissioners W.C. Boyd Jr. and Alan Kutzing expire this year. Mayor Clif Williams and commissioners Patricia Bragg and Raleigh B. Lee III have two more years to serve on their four-year terms.
This election cycle, Bath voters will choose a mayor and two members of that town’s four-member Board of Commissioners. The four-year terms of Mayor Jimmy Latham and commissioners Keith Tankard and John A. Taylor expire this year. The four-year terms of commissioners Patricia Duffer and Jay Hardin expire in 2017.
In Belhaven, where the mayor serves a two-year term and members of the five-member Board of Aldermen serve staggered, four-year terms, voters will mark ballots for a mayor and three aldermen, two from the east-end district and one from the west-end district. The terms of Mayor Adam O’Neal and aldermen Vic Cox, Julian P. Goff (both from the east-end district) and Robert L. Stanley expire. The terms of aldermen Tony Williams (east-end district) and Greg Satterthwaite expire in 2017.
This year, Chocowinity voters will elect two members of the town’s four-member Board of Commissioners. The four-year terms of commissioners M.L. Dunbar and Arlene D. Jones expire this year. The four-year terms of Mayor Jimmy Mobley and commissioners Billy Albritton and Louise S. Furman expire in 2017.
This year, Pantego voters will elect a mayor and five members of the town’s five-member Board of Commissioners. The mayor and commissioners serve two-year terms. Stuart Ricks is the mayor. Mart Benson, Reid Michael Gelderman, Robert Edwards, Chad Keech and Chuck Williams are the commissioners.
Washington Park voters will elect a mayor and five members of the town’s Board of Commissioners this election cycle. The mayor and commissioners serve two-year terms. Tom Richter is the current mayor. The incumbent commissioners are Lee Bowen, Patrick Nash, Wade Dale, Jeff Peacock and Brian Wood.