Elon University staff member Stephanie Bourland and Elon Community Church Senior Pastor Randy Orwig will fill the two vacant seats on the Elon Board of Alderman. The polls have closed which means Bourland and Orwig, who were running unopposed, will join the board.
9 p.m. --
As of 9 p.m., Bourland has 53.27% of votes and Orwig has 44.33% of votes, with 24 out of 33 Alamance County precincts reported in.
Bourland is excited with the closing of the polls and is grateful for people showing up to vote.
“I enjoyed meeting all of the people that came out to vote and I appreciate them coming out to vote, especially as the night grew, it got very cold outside,” Bourland said. “But people were really, really genuine, they had done their homework, and I was just really impressed.”
Orwig is excited to keep moving past the election and be able to get started.
“Well it’s done, that’s the biggest thing. And we’ll see what the results are, which I’m pretty sure we know. But I think it’s good that it’s done now, that we can move forward,” Orwig said.
Orwig hopes to bring back up a past resolution about being environmentally greener and believes he will be able to get it passed this time.
“We helped to advocate for a resolution for us to become carbon neutral or to become 100% sustainable by 2050 and I want to relook at that resolution again and see if we can get that passed now, and I think we’re going to be able to,” Orwig said.
Bourland found that by running unopposed, she was able to learn more about what the people of Elon want during her campaign, rather than persuade voters.
“One of the main things that I wanted to do because it was an election where we had two seats and only two of us running, was really to do more of a listening campaign to try to find out what was important to the people that live in the town of Elon,” Bourland said. “I was able to do that because I didn’t have to worry so much about winning.”