By Ray Gronberg

gronberg@heraldsun.com; 419-6648

DURHAM -- Voters head to the polls today to winnow down the fields of candidates in the City Council's Ward 1 and Ward 2 races.

The vote will occur citywide. Durham's ward system requires candidates to live in the ward they'd represent, but makes picking winners in each race a decision for all people registered to vote, no matter where in the city they live.

In the Ward 1 race, incumbent Cora Cole-McFadden is squaring off against challengers Donald Hughes and John Tarantino. Cole-McFadden is seeking her third term. Hughes and Tarantino are first-time candidates.

Meanwhile, in Ward 2, incumbent Howard Clement faces challengers Matt Drew, Sandra Howell, Darius Little and Sylvester Williams. Clement has been on the council since 1983. The challengers are all first-time candidates.

Today's vote will reduce the fields to a pair of candidates in each of the races.

County elections managers say 139,309 people were registered to vote in city races as of Oct. 1.

October primaries are traditionally low-turnout affairs. Durham's last ward primary, in 1995, drew 13,103 voters to winnow fields for all city offices, including the mayoral and Ward 3 seats that this year were contested by only two candidates each.

The primary in the 2007 races for a trio of at-large City Council seats drew 12,875 people, a turnout of about 11 percent of that year's registered voters.

Elections officials conducted early voting in this year's race from Sept. 17 until this past Saturday, at the Board of Elections' headquarters on West Corporation Street. Some 894 people cast ballots.

An average of about 60 people voted each day the early-voting site was open. The high was 101, on Saturday; the low was 7, on Sept. 27.

The winners of today's primary will square off in the Nov. 3 general election, along with Ward 3 candidates Allan Polak and Mike Woodard and mayoral candidates Bill Bell and Steven Williams.

The elections board is scheduled to certify the results of the primary on Oct. 13. Early voting for the general election will begin on Oct. 15. For more information about the election, visit the Board of Elections Web site at http://www.co.durham.nc.us/departments/elec/index.html.