No further activity in the Seneca election

Unless someone else steps forward, there’s the possibility that the county will call off Seneca’s March election and automatically return the incumbents to office. Only a few days remain for candidate qualifying. By this morning, only the four incumbents had entered. As explained by Joy Scharich, the elections director, once the qualifying closes at noon on Monday, the clock will start to tick on a seven-day period during which other Seneca residents may declare their candidacy for city council as write-in candidates in the March 13 election. But the key is that write-in candidates would have to declare by contacting the county elections office in Walhalla or a member of the board of registration and elections. If there are no other ballot candidates and no write-in candidates, the county would cancel the election, as it did under similar circumstances two years ago, according to Scharich. But this will be the last time that can happen, as Scharich says the General Assembly has changed the law and now will require elections take place even if there are no contested seats and no announced write-in candidates. A total, of four seats are available this year. Those are the seats held by Joel Ward, Denise Rozman, Stuart Pohl, and Scott Durham. Those four are running again.