Nonpartisan elections approved for Kinston, school board

Officials with the U.S. Department of Justice sent a letter tonight to all parties involved in the more than four-year effort to bring nonpartisan elections to Kinston, stating having nonpartisan voting would not disenfranchise minority voters.

Based on a review of the data from Kinston's 2011 municipal election -- which created a black majority on the Kinston City Council -- DOJ officials concluded "the black electorate is now large enough to successfully elect its preferred candidates in either partisan or nonpartisan municipal elections in Kinston. We therefore concluded that, today, a change from the former to the latter in Kinston is not impermissibly retrogressive under Section 5," Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez wrote in a letter.

The ruling also covered nonpartisan elections for the Lenoir County school board as well. School board officials and Rep. Stephen LaRoque, R-Lenoir, petitioned for a change from the current partisan system.

See Saturday's Free Press or Kinston.com for more details.

David Anderson can be reached at 252-559-1077 or danderson@freedomenc.com. Follow him on Twitter at DavidFreePress.