by Teresa Eubanks, Journal Editor
Both the incumbent and his challenger had plenty of support in last week’s District 4 County Commission race in Liberty County with only three votes separating them after the final tally.
Davis Stoutamire secured another term on the county commission after the votes were verified in his race with challenger Bo Sanders.
The two men were separated by four votes on election night after a provisional ballot was verified after the unofficial results were tallied. A machine recount was conducted the next day and one ballot – in which the voter had made a checkmark for Sanders instead of filling in the circle – narrowed the margin by one, giving Stoutamire a three vote lead.
Every single one of the county’s 2180 ballots were fed into a tabulator during the recount. “We had teams working on three machines to run each set of precincts,” said Elections Supervisor Marcia Wood. The recount began at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday and concluded at 10 p.m. with the elections staff, the canvassing board, a couple of elections volunteers and candidate Davis Stoutamire looking on. Stoutamire had 1,078 votes to Sanders’ 1,075.
There were two other local races on last week’s Primary ballot. District 3 School Board member incumbent Darrel “Doobie” Hayes defeated opponent Stephen L. Ford 1255 to 895. District 5 School Board incumbent Roger Reddick overcame opponent Pat Summerlin 1211 to 942.
