Legally yes, but part of the article makes it sound like there was a regular election between two candidates with everything you expect and the winner is being denied. That’s not the case and we don’t know how the citizens actually feel about this. It did, after all, take decades for someone to do this.

Not that any of this should have ever happened in the first place, they should have just run the elections normally.

Braxton was allegedly the only person who qualified for the position of mayor, according to the lawsuit. Stokes “did not bother to qualify as a candidate,” the lawsuit said, even though he knew Braxton was planning to run. No candidates qualified for town council positions, either.

Braxton was elected mayor by default, making him the first Black mayor of Newbern in the 165 years since the town was founded.

That’s an important bit of context, they still didn’t have a proper election.