Filling two vacancies on the State Board of Elections may not be at the top of Gov. Bev Perdue’s to-do list as the new year gets under way. But doing so would help the Pasquotank County Board of Elections fulfill its responsibilities by seating a dully-elected city council member from the 3rd Ward.

The dilemma began when Kem Spence tallied the most votes Oct. 11 to take one of two 3rd Ward seats. Brooks finished second and Dennis Stallings third. Stallings called for a runoff with Brooks, and won on Nov. 8 by five votes.

Brooks filed a protest, claiming that eight relatives of Stallings who voted in the 3rd Ward don’t live in that ward.

The Pasquotank County Board of Elections ruled for Brooks at a hearing Nov. 30, saying the eight votes was more than Stallings’ five-vote margin that could have given Brooks the win if indeed the relatives’ votes were invalidated.

The local board forwarded the case to the State Board of Elections to decide whether to call for a new runoff election for that seat.

As council members were sworn in Dec. 12, rather than leaving the 3rd Ward seat vacant until decided by another runoff, new Mayor Joe Peel announced that Brooks would stay on council until the State Elections Board resolves the vacancy. He said his decision was based on advice from the N.C. Attorney General’s Office.

City Attorney Bill Morgan explained the Attorney General indicated Brooks was the appropriate person to serve as the holdover council from the 3rd Ward since he was the incumbent who sought re-election.

Meanwhile, Pasquotank elections officials traveled to Raleigh Dec. 22 to present their findings to the state board, which only had three members.

At full strength when it has five members, two vacancies were created by the resignations in October of a Democrat and a Republican. The remaining three include two Democrats and a Republican. Because the governor is a Democrat, the board’s majority is Democrat.

But the state board said it couldn’t act on the request for a new runoff election because it needs a super majority — or four votes — to make that happen.

Thus, local elections officials traveled to Raleigh for nothing, other than to be told to wait for a super majority to rule on their request for a new runoff election.

That could be weeks or months, depending on when the governor fills the vacancies.

Even then, it could take weeks longer for Pasquotank to get approval from the U.S. Justice Department to hold another runoff.

Mark Johnson, a spokesman for Perdue, said she has a list of nominees from the N.C. Democratic Party to fill one vacancy. Names are also being reviewed from a list submitted by the N.C. Republican Party for the other vacancy. Apparently two of the three Republicans nominated were not interested in being appointed.

Perdue could fill one or both vacancies, which would give the board a super majority to order a new runoff. But she hasn’t done it yet, and it’s also causing another community, the Town of Mt. Gilead, to hold off filling a vacancy resulting from contested municipal elections.

It’s not that the governor isn’t aware or doesn’t care, according to Johnson. “The governor wants to fill those seats as soon as possible,” Johnson said.

It’s not the first time Perdue has not acted swiftly to fill a vacancy on an important state board.

Early last year, now state Sen. Stan White left the state Board of Transportation to succeed the retiring state Sen. Marc Basnight.

It took Perdue more than seven months to appoint Matt Wood to the former Division 1 seat of White. All are Democrats, too.

Granted, there are a lot of pressing issues facing the governor, including this week’s special session of the General Assembly that gets under way Wednesday. And she’s spending a good amount of time running a re-election campaign.

Still, it shouldn’t take months to fill vacancies on important state boards. We urge her to make the Board of Elections whole again. This week is as good a time as any.