Filings keep county clerk’s office busy

    Just leave it to the final week for filings to make an election interesting.
    With the deadline arriving at 5 p.m. Tuesday, Chase County has seen big interest from prospective candidates for local races.
    As the deadline arrived, 14 new candidates for local offices had filed in the previous seven days.
    The recent filings created some run-offs in the May 10 Primary for three county positions, the NRD board at-large seat and Wauneta-Palisade school board.
    Since county offices remain partisan, candidates have to file as Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, etc. All of the candidates seeking county office are Republicans, so only the top vote-getter will advance from the Primary.
    The race for County Treasurer is the most crowded, with three Republicans running to replace incumbent Cynthia Schoenberger, who is not seeking re-election.
    Amy Prior and Penny Strand filed in the final days this week, and join Rebecca Bernard in running for County Treasurer.
    There will also be Primary races for County Attorney and County Assessor. Joel Burke, a former Chase County Attorney, filed the past week for that seat and is challenging incumbent Arlan Wine. Tori Otzel and Sid Bartels are seeking the Assessor Republican Primary nomination.     Current Assessor Dotty Bartels did not file.
    No Dist. 3 County Commissioner candidates had filed up until a week ago. But, last Thursday, Kurt Bernhardt filed for the seat now held by Dennis Kunnemann, who is not seeking re-election.
    Incumbent Dist. 2 Commissioner Jacci Brown is unopposed. Wendy Moe is the lone candidate for County Clerk, as incumbent Debra Clark did not file. Incumbent Kevin Mueller filed for reelection.
    Duncan Einspahr filed for Imperial Mayor last Friday and will challenge current councilman Craig Loeffler, who filed for mayor earlier.
    Nick Colton is seeking an Imperial city council seat, where three are now running for the two open spots.
    All of the city candidates will advance to November’s General Election.
    Filings the past week also created races for both Chase County and Wauneta-Palisade school boards.
    Four new filings came in, challenging the three WP school board incumbents, and two additional candidates are seeking CCS board seats, for which all four incumbents had filed earlier.
    At WP, Brock Malcolm, Shane Gerhartz, Mick Majors and Vanessa Fanning filed. The three incumbents filed earlier. That will create a run-off at the primary, when the six top vote-getters advance to November.
    At CCS, new board filings came in from Jason Banks and Jason Burke. With the four incumbents filing earlier, all six will advance to November.
    In addition, one Upper Republican NRD board incumbent has two challengers, and two candidates are now hoping to replace State Sen. Dan Hughes and fill his Dist. 44 legislative seat.
    Two filings for the at-large seat on the NRD board were recorded in recent days from Brad Dixon of Benkelman and Steven Grams of Imperial. At-large incumbent Brock Stromberger also filed.
    Those filings create a May Primary runoff when two of the three NRD at-large candidates will advance to the General Election.
    All even-numbered NRD seats are up for election this year, and all incumbents have filed with the exception of Subdistrict 10.
    Teresa Ibach of Sumner, which is in Dawson County, filed for the state senator race. She and Ed Dunn of Grant, who filed weeks ago, will both advance to the November election.
    The Mid-Plains Community College Board of Directors race received its first filing for District 2, which includes Chase County. Tyler Pribbeno of Imperial filed for the Dist. 2 seat.
    While filing deadlines have passed, County Clerk/Election Commissioner Clark said a person can file a write-in affidavit form by Thursday, March 3. If filed by the deadline, write-in votes for that individual will be counted, she said.
Voter registration deadlines
    Voters who want to participate in the May 10 Primary Election have a few weeks yet to register, or make changes if needed.
    For those who want to register by mail or online, it must be done by April 22, she said.
    In-person voter registrations will be taken up until May 2 at 6 p.m. in Clark’s office at the Chase County Courthouse.