The early voting, absentee ballot and write-in votes have all five Democratic school board candidates in the lead.

Most of the districts have about 1,000 votes in with the Dems up by 60 percent or more. As previously stated, the Democrats outnumbered the Republicans 2 to 1 in early voting.

It represents 1.6 percent of the turnout in the five districts.

UPDATE

All five Democrats are still leading after 18,356 votes. It's 5.6 percent of the turnout. In the pivotal District 8 battle. Susan Evans has 53 percent of the vote to Ron Margiotta's 47 percent with 3 of 20 precincts reporting.

With the majority of precincts in, Democrats are poised to sweep all five seats. With 21 of 26 precincts in, Kevin Hill is barely holding on to avoid a runoff with 50.2 percent.

Evans has 52 percent with 21 of 26 precincts in.  Keith Sutton has 81 percent with 21 of 26 precincts. Jim Martin has 70 pecent with 11 of 18 precincts in. Christine Kushner has 60 percent with 26 of33 precincts.

With all the precincts in, Hill fell short of a runoff but the other four Democrats have all won.

Wake County Superintendent Tony Tata publicly called out school board candidate Jim Martin today, accusing him of sending out an inaccurate press release.

Click here for the online story. Basically, Tata criticized this press release from Martin about the Enloe High Key Club investigation. Tata also says Martin had omitted some of his responses in this e-mail stream that the candidate had released.

“I’m setting the record straight,” Tata said. “He put out an inaccurate press release. I asked him to correct it. He refused. He put out, the only way to call it,  an e-mail string that had emails removed from it. A reasonable person could assume that was intended to create a false impression."

UPDATE

I got Martin's response to Tata's remarks:

"I choose not to debate this issue in the news," Martin said in an e-mail message.

I should have also included this earlier from Martin. This is what Martin says he told Tata before today's press conference:

"I am very sorry for this misunderstanding between us. I welcome the opportunity to sit down together and resolve the matter."

See the end of the post for a series of pretty blunt e-mail messages between Tata and Martin that I received following a public records request. The update includes the messages that Tata says were omitted and the exchanges between the two in which Tata asks Martin for him to correct his press release.

Several prominent educators, all of whom are Democrats, have endorsed the five school board candidates backed by the Wake County Democratic Party.

In a press release Wednesday, the Wake Democratic Party promoted the endorsements given by the eight educators to Kevin Hill in District 3, Keith Sutton in District 4, Jim Martin in District 5, Christine Kushner in District 6 and Susan Evans in District 8.

The endorsements come from some familiar names, including former Wake Superintendent Bob Bridges, former Associate State Superintendent Dudley Flood, retired Wake principal Diane Payne, former Deputy State Superintendent J.B. Buxton and former N.C. Public School Forum director John Dornan.

"These endorsements represent our shared view that these five candidates have articulated a direction and possess a vision that are in the best interests of the students and residents of Wake County," says the joint statement from the educators. "These five candidates have pledged to focus on student learning - not just student assignment - and to support our teachers and principals to help all students achieve at high levels. We believe that among all the candidates running, it is these five that deserve the opportunity to serve and to put Wake County schools on the right track."

Wake County school board candidate Jim Martin has maintained his commanding fundraising lead over Cynthia Matson in the District 5 race.

A new campaign finance report filed this week shows Martin had raised $31,534.46 as of Sept. 26 with $19,787.51 on hand. In contrast, Matson had only raised $8,517.10 as of Sept. 26 with $2,132.38 on hand.

The largest donors for Martin in the new report are the $2,000 from Capitol Broadcasting CEO Jim Goodmon and $500 from Wake Citizens for Good Government.

School funding and the role of magnet schools are just some of the issues dividing Wake County school board candidates Jim Martin and Cynthia Matson in the District 5 race.

As noted in today's article by Thomas Goldsmith, Matson is talking at looking for areas to cut out the budget as opposed to asking for funding increases that could raise taxes.

“I’d like to see us make better use of the resources we do have,” Matson said. “There are a lot of ways to manage the budget in a more fiscally responsible way.”

The N&O's editorial board announced its endorsements for Wake County school board on Friday.

The editorial board endorsed Kevin Hill in District 3, Keith Sutton in District 4, Jim Martin in District 5, Christine Kushner in District 6 and Susan Evans in District 8.

The endorsements are not handled by the News Department. The first time I saw the endorsements was when I opened the newspaper on Friday.

Wake County school board candidate Cynthia Matson is still at a serious fundraising disadvantage in the District 5 race.

Matson's latest campaign finance report, filed Friday, shows she had raised $8,517.10 as of Sept. 26 with $2,132.38 on hand. Jim Martin had already raised more than $26,000 through the end of August.

The biggest donor in the new report was the $500 from the Northern Wake Republican Club. She also got donations from Raleigh City Council candidate Brian Tinga's campaign committee, the Western Wake Republican Club, Wake County school board member John Tedesco and Wake County Commissioner Tony Gurley.

Bob Luddy's earlier $4,000 donation covers close to half of her campaign war chest. Click here for Matson's latest report.

Wake County school board candidate Jim Martin is challenging Superintendent Tony Tata's decision to shut down Enloe High School's Key Club website.

The Key Club had put on its website links for members to volunteer for the campaigns of Martin and fellow school board candidate Susan Evans. Tata said at today's press conference that the club's website, which has a link on the high school's website, was inappropriate so he had it shut down and had the Human Resources Department investigate the club's two advisers for potentially violating board policy on electioneering.

In this press release today, Martin argued that Enloe's Key Club should be allowed to post those volunteer opportunities because Key Club International is independent of the school system. He also says that the  Key Club website's, while accessible from the school website, is hosted by a service not affiliated to the district.

SEE UPDATE AT END OF POST, WHICH INCLUDES CYNTHIA MATSON'S PRESS RELEASE RESPONDING TO MARTIN'S CHARGES

Wake County Superintendent Tony Tata said today that an investigation has been launched into whether an Enloe High School teacher improperly solicited support for two school board candidates on a school-linked club web site.

Tata said they had shut down a link on Enloe’s Key Club website soliciting campaign volunteers for school board candidates Susan Evans and Jim Martin.

He said using a school website to advertise for specific candidates is improper and that the Human Resources Department is investigating whether the club’s advisor knew about the posting.

Wake County school board candidate Cynthia Matson says she would "love another $10,000 (in campaign donations) by Monday."

Matson made the pitch for more campaign cash during an interview today on the conservative Frank Roche Show on WRDU. She said she's raised about $10,000 but will need more money to defeat Jim Martin in District 5.

"I would love people to give us some more donations because then I can reach more individuals throughout the county and throughout my district because really when I get on that board they may not be able to vote for me in my district but when I'm elected I'm voting for them," Matson said. "So I'm asking people across the county if you believe in choice, if you believe in fiscal efficiency, you believe in having the community represented and you want someone who knows how to read a budget, manage people and get things done, please support my campaign financially."