An assistant district attorney is challenging a circuit judge and the incumbent congressman is facing a primary challenge on the final ballot for this year.

In other contested races, the local chancery-court judge is being challenged by a Vicksburg attorney and four candidates are seeking the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate.

Friday was the qualifying deadline for those and five uncontested races for judge or levee commissioner in the county or area.

Assistant District Attorney John Bullard is challenging incumbent Frank Vollor in the Nov. 7 general election for one of two 9th Circuit Court District judgeships.

The district includes Warren, Sharkey and Issaquena counties and both judges serve the entire district.

For elections, however, the district is divided into subdistricts, one including some voters in Warren County and the other the remainder of voters in Warren and all voters in Sharkey and Issaquena counties.

Candidates for district judgeships file with the Mississippi Secretary of State’s office, whose list of candidacy filings said it was current as of Thursday. The list is available through the office’s Web site, www.sos.state.ms.us/elections/ 2006.

Also, Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Bolton, is being challenged by two candidates in a June 6 Democratic Party primary. His challengers are Dorothy &#8220Dot” Benford of Jackson and state Rep. Chuck Espy of Clarksdale.

The winner will face the Republican nominee, Mayor Yvonne R. Brown of Tchula, in the general election.

Judicial races in Mississippi are nonpartisan so all judicial candidates’ names will appear on ballots for the first time Nov. 7.

In the other contested judicial race Vicksburg-based chancery-court judge, Vicki Roach Barnes, 58, is being challenged by Vicksburg attorney Ceola James.

And in the other contested congressional primary, also set for June 6, Bill Bowlin of Hickory Flat, state Rep. Erik Fleming of Clinton, James O’Keefe of Long Beach and Catherine Starr of Hattiesburg are vying for the Democratic nomination for one of the state’s two seats in the U.S. Senate.

The winner will face the Republican nominee, Sen. Trent Lott, and Libertarian Party candidate Harold Taylor of Nesbit in the general election.

Two judges representing jurisdictions including or comprised of Warren County are running unopposed for re-election. They are Isadore Patrick, 55, of the 9th Circuit Court District and Johnny Price, 59, of Warren County Court and Youth Court.

The respective judges for the circuit- and chancery-court districts that include Claiborne County, Lamar Pickard of Hazlehurst and George Ward of Natchez, were had also filed to run for re-election without opposition, Mississippi Secretary of State’s Office records show.

Elections are also set for Nov. 7 for some counties’ representatives on the District Board of Mississippi Levee Commissioners. Sharkey is among those counties and its representative, Laurance Carter of Rolling Fork, is running for re-election unopposed.

For those not registered to vote the deadline to register in time to vote in the June 6 primary was Friday in Warren County and is today at noon in Claiborne, Issaquena and Sharkey counties.

One school-board election is set for Warren County this year. The seat up for election represents District 2 and is held by Zelmarine Murphy. The filing period for candidacy for the office is Aug. 9 until Sept. 8. Candidates file with the Warren County Circuit Clerk’s Office, on the second floor of the Warren County Courthouse.

The June 6 primary is the first in which touch-screen voting machines are to be used in all area counties. Machines programmed with mock ballots for practice are available in the circuit clerks’ offices.