Two candidates will face each other in a runoff for a Starkville-Oktibbeha Consolidated School District board of trustees seat.
Exactly which two is still up in the air.
Cassandra Palmer easily led the four-candidate race, earning 662 votes (45.44 percent). A candidate needed more than 50 percent of the total vote to avoid a runoff.
Rev. Ronnie Tucker currently stands in second place with 336 votes, but Willette DuVall trails him by only 13 votes. There are 33 affidavit ballots to be processed today, which could impact whether Tucker or DuVall will meet Palmer in the Nov. 23 runoff.
Incumbent John Brown finished fourth with only 133 votes, less than 10 percent of those cast.
Palmer said she was hoping to win the election outright Tuesday but is ready to continue campaigning. She said while she is concerned about the runoff being during the week of Thanksgiving, she hopes to secure all of her votes from Tuesday and a few more.
“I was hoping for enough votes to end it tonight,” Palmer said. “I’m a little disappointed by that, but I’m ready to gear up for the next phase.”
Tucker said he is waiting for today’s affidavits to come back but is hopeful the results will be in his favor and is ready to continue the campaigning process.
“There’s still some uncertainty,” Tucker said. “We’ll find out for sure (today), but it looks like that if everything goes as it is now, we’ll get a runoff with Ms. Palmer.”
DuVall said she is saddened by the current results because she wanted to be the one to represent the rural community but knows that anything is possible and she could still win the race.
“We all worked hard,” DuVall said. “Whoever wins is the person that is supposed to win. There is a season for everyone.”
This is one of two elected seats on the consolidated school district board, and only residents of Oktibbeha County who live outside the city limits were eligible to vote. Three seats filled by Starkville residents are filled by board of aldermen appointments.
This race was the first election to use Oktibbeha County’s newest voting machines where individuals submit paper ballots into an electronic machine. Circuit Clerk Tony Rook said many people expressed approval of the machines, stating they liked being able to submit a physical copy of their votes. He said no major issues occurred with the machines other than a slight paper jam that took less than a minute to fix.
“I spoke with multiple poll workers today,” Rook said Tuesday. “They liked our new machines. We received very positive feedback from an overwhelming majority of voters.”
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