'The Citizens Voted': N.C. Mayor Takes Office More Than Two Years After Election
Allen Dial was sworn in as the mayor of Pembroke on Monday, 874 days after voters elected him.
Legal battles kept Dial out of office after the Nov. 7, 2023, election in which he defeated incumbent mayor Gregory Cummings by 19 votes. Cummings challenged the results, taking his case all the way to the N.C. Court of Appeals, which ruled against him in early March.
“The citizens voted, and they were deprived of what they voted for,” Dial told the Border Belt Independent on Monday. “I just want to move forward.”
Cummings, who served as mayor since 2015, claimed that some voters in the election were ineligible to cast ballots–including some unhoused people who stayed in a tent community on Dial’s property in the Robeson County town.
https://borderbelt.org/pembroke-mayor-allen-dial-sworn-into-office/