Last-minute filings by candidates Monday affected some area races, especially the contest for the 6^th District seat in the N.C. House of Representatives.

Republican Arthur Williams filed Monday as a candidate for the 6^th District seat. He will face Ashley Woolard and Beverly Boswell, also Republicans, in the GOP primary March 15. Boswell, a member of the Dare County Board of Commissioners, filed Monday. Williams formerly held that seat, but he lost it to Republican Bill Cook in the 2010 general election. Williams ran as a Democrat in 2010. Woolard and Williams live in Washington.

Dare County Democrats Judy Justice and Warren Judge are seeking to become the Democratic nominee for the 6^th District seat being vacated by Paul Tine, who changed his party affiliation from Democrat to unaffiliated nearly a year ago. Tine is not seeking re-election.

The district includes part of Beaufort County and all of Dare and Washington counties.

Cook, who now represents District 1 in the N.C. Senate, faces a challenge to his re-election bid from Democrat Brownie Futrell. Cook and Futrell live in Beaufort County, which is part of District 1, which also includes Dare, Hyde, Currituck, Camden, Pasquotank, Perquimans and Gates counties.

Locally, five Republican candidates for the Beaufort County Board of Commissioners will face each other in a primary to determine the four GOP nominees. The five candidates who have filed so far include incumbents Gary Brinn and Hood Richardson. Don Cox, Derik Davis and Jerry Evans round out the GOP field.

Four seats on the board are available in the 2016 election cycle. Commissioners serve four-year, staggered terms.

There will be no primary for Democrats seeking seats on the Board of Commissioners. Incumbents Jerry Langley and Robert Belcher are seeking re-election. Greg Satterthwaite is seeking a seat on the board. They will face the Republican nominees in the general election in November.

Beaufort County School Board members Eltha Booth (District 1), Barbara Boyd-Williams (District 3), F. Mac Hodges, (District 5), Carolyn S. Walker (District 7) and Mike Isbell (District 9) have filed for re-election. Terry W. Draper filed as a candidate for the District 9 seat on the school board, which is nonpartisan. Hodges faces challenges from Kate A. Phelps and David Daniel for the District 5 seat on the board. On Monday, David Daniel filed as a candidate for the District 5 seat.

Board members serve four-year, staggered terms. There is no primary for school-board members, who are elected in during the general election next fall. The school-board races are nonpartisan.

Michael Speciale, the Republican who represents District 3 in the N.C. House of Representatives, faces a challenge from Democrat Marva Fisher Baldwin in his re-election bid. District 3 includes parts of Beaufort and Craven counties and all of Pamlico County.

Republicans Walter B. Jones Jr., Phil Law and Taylor Griffin will face one another in a primary to determine the GOP nominee to represent the state’s 3^rd District in the U.S. House of Representatives. Jones, the incumbent, is seeking an 11^th term in Congress. The winner of that GOP primary faces Democrat David Hurst in the general election. Hurst filed Thursday.

U.S. Rep. G.K. Butterfield Jr., a Democrat, faces a challenge from Libertarian C.L. Cooke in his re-election bid in the state’s 1^st Congressional District.

Jennifer Leggett Whitehurst, the incumbent register of deeds in Beaufort County, has filed for re-election.

Michael A. Paul and Chris McLendon are seeking re-election as district court judges in the 2^nd Judicial District.

From electing a president to local elections for county commissioners, school-board members and judges, North Carolina voters go to the polls in 2016 for primaries nearly two months earlier than usual. In past years, the Old North State’s presidential and other primaries were held in early May.

Because of a change enacted by the N.C. General Assembly earlier this year, the filing period for the 2016 election cycle began at noon Dec. 1 and ended at noon Monday.

Some candidates will face one another in primaries March 15. Others move on to face primary winners in the general election in the fall. Some candidates face no opposition at all, either in primaries or the general election.