Precinct Organization March 6 -20

The NC Democratic Party established the March 6 – 20 timeframe as the window for holding annual precinct organization meetings. First Vice Chair Shamoyi McIver and the party officers are developing a plan for these meetings.

They will be virtual on Zoom. Right now, we have 19 precincts that are organized per the NCDP guidelines, which require a Chair, Vice Chair, and three other registered Democrats from the precinct. We have two precincts where people have stepped up and are close to being organized. And, there are 19 unorganized precincts. Here’s a link to a map of the county’s precincts.

The 20 organized precincts are (chair in parentheses): #2 Banoak (Gene Biggerstaff), #38 Falling Creek (Marguerite Cook), #16 Highland (Shannon Auer), #12 Kenworth (Toni Abernathy), #41 Lake Norman (Flavia Dietrich), #19 Long View S. (Deborah Hollingsworth), #21 Monogram (Sheryl Schuhose), #23 Mountain View 1 (Delene Huggins), #24 Mountain View 2 (Julie Cline), #26 Oakland Heights (Steve Walker), #14 Oakwood (David Turman), #27 Oxford (Carole Hovland), #15 Ridgeview (Margaret Pope), #30 Sandy Ridge (Sherbia Jones), #31 Sherrills Ford (Joanie Gardner), #32 South Newton (Greg Cranford), #29 St. Stephens 2 (Marshall Montgomery), #35 Sweetwater (Audrey Helms), #36 Viewmont 1 (Eli Glynn), and #37 Viewmont 2 (Lynn Spees).

The two precincts close to being organized with people who have stepped up to take the lead are: #7 Conover West (Tracie/Colby Dagenhart) and #39 Northwest (Beth Brandes).

The 18 unorganized precincts are: #1 Balls Creek, #3 Blackburn, #4 Brookford, #5 Catawba, #6 Claremont, #11 College Park, #8 Conover East, #10 East Newton, #9 East Maiden, #13 Greenmont, #17 Long View N., #20 Maiden, #22 Mt. Olive, #25 N. Newton, #28 St. Stephens 1, #34 Startown, #33 Springs, and #40 West Newton.

At the Jan. 26 meeting, the CCDP Executive Committee approved an Alternative Plan of Organization that will allow the unit of organization of the Catawba County Democratic Party to be “the voting precinct or the precinct cluster that consists of two or three adjacent voting precincts.”

If this proposed plan is approved by the State party (we hope it will be on the Feb. 27 SEC meeting agenda) it will help us organize more precincts by not requiring five active Democrats from each precinct. If you look at the map (see link), we could cluster precincts #2, #3, and #34 for example. This approach is working in neighboring Burke County and is helping them get better organized. Other rural/red counties are considering this approach as well.