Nearly one year after a voting snafu marred last fall’s Town Council election, the date for a second ballot remains up in the air. But one thing is known: Clayton voters will not choose their next local leaders on Nov. 4.

State election officials wanted to hold the Town Council vote on Election Day, County Attorney Mark Payne told the Johnston County Board of Elections last week. But doing so would have broken a rule governing the timing of an election, he said.

“There is this rule, and it’s somewhat unique, that if the state board orders an election, it can do so no sooner than 55 days in advance,” Payne said. “But by the time [the N.C. Court of Appeals] issued a decision, the state had less than 50 days.”

On Sept. 16, the appeals court issued a final judgment in a complaint brought by Alex Atchison, a current councilman who was on last year’s ballot. Atchison and R.S. “Butch” Lawter, another candidate, challenged last year’s election, in which 20 voters received the wrong ballots.

A Wake County judge ruled earlier this year that those 20 votes could have affected the outcome of the election. In the 2007 balloting, Alex Harding received 527 votes, placing him first in the race for two seats. Art Holder had 516 votes, and Lawter had 513 votes. Atchison finished fourth with 457 votes, and Michael Starks was fifth with 124 votes.

The Wake County judge said all five candidates should appear on a second ballot. At the time of the ruling, state election law said all candidates should get a second chance if irregularities in an election could have changed the outcome.

This summer, the General Assembly changed the law to say that only those candidates who could have been affected by a voting mix-up should appear on a new ballot. In Clayton, that would have kept Atchison and Starks off of a second ballot.

Susan Nichols, a deputy state attorney general, twice challenged the original ruling in the case. Nichols asked the appeals court to consider how the change in election law affected the case. She argued that the new law should govern a second Clayton election.

The Court of Appeals disagreed, ruling last month that all five candidates should appear on a new ballot. But the court’s decision came too late to hold the second election on Nov. 4, the day Clayton voters will cast ballots for president and other offices.

“The purpose of the administrative rule is to enable proper notice and afford the maximum voter turnout,” Payne said. “I think that the state’s opinion was that holding the election on Nov. 4 would keep in the spirit of the rule. But I was concerned that there was a likelihood of controversy because that doesn’t keep with the letter of the rule.”

Gordon Woodruff, chairman of the Johnston County Board of Elections, said he shared Payne’s concerns. He said some candidates in the Clayton election had called him recently to express their own worries that a new election, if held on Nov. 4, could become mired in controversy.

“There was concern expressed by the candidates that there might be another challenge if this election is not done right,” Woodruff said. “There might be a cloud over it, and we might go through all of this again.”

A new date for the Clayton election has not been set. Payne said state elections officials were looking at Dec. 9.

Should the state decide on that date, voters would have until Nov. 7 to register, said Leigh Anne Price, supervisor of Johnston elections. One-stop voting would be held at the elections office in Smithfield, and absentee ballots would be due by Nov. 20.