2 races decided Tuesday in Lincoln County
Published 11:38 pm Tuesday, August 27, 2019
- Photo by Donna Campbell Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office investigator Ian Smith, surrounded following the election by some of his supporters, was elected to Justice Court Judge Post 1 Tuesday in a runoff against incumbent Joe Portrey.
While voters across Lincoln County were tasked with choosing the winner of the chancery clerk Republican runoff, only some of the eligible voters were able to cast ballots for a supervisor, a judge and a constable.
Lincoln County Deputy Chancery Clerk Alisha McGehee defeated real estate appraiser Pete Moak in the runoff Tuesday for the chancery clerk’s race. Without a Democratic challenger in November, that race was decided Tuesday with McGehee coming out victorious.
Ian Smith also won his race outright, beating incumbent Post 1 Justice Court Judge Joe Portrey 2,428 — 58.56 percent — to 1,714. Without a challenger in November, Smith will be sworn in as judge in January.
Two others will face Democratic challengers Nov. 5 for the general election.
Jerry McGehee won the Republican runoff for District 2 Supervisor with 655 votes — 53.87 percent — to Don Smith’s 558 votes. He’ll face Democrat Cynthia Price in the general election.
Incumbent Post 2 Constable W. Lavon Boyd narrowly beat Troy Floyd, 1,399 to 1,315 votes. That’s 51.38 percent to 48.29 percent. Floyd will face Democrat Mary H. Wilson in the general election.
While Lincoln County Circuit Clerk Dustin Bairfield said the runoff election here went smoothly, other counties across the state had experienced issues.
The runoff election across the state
As of 5 p.m., the Secretary of State’s Office had received several dozen phone calls with questions concerning various election issues which include affidavit voting, assistance at the polls and crossover voting.
According to the Secretary of State’s office, the following issues were reported at select polling places across the state including:
Lafayette County
• At the Burgess precinct in Oxford, one TSX machine malfunctioned. Nineteen votes were cast on the machine before the problem was reported. The county dispatched a technician to the precinct and the tablet was replaced.
• Each political party’s county executive committee is responsible for providing testing on TSX machines. Both parties contracted with the county election commission and the county technician to provide accuracy testing for this machine and the machine operated correctly prior to the election.
Calhoun County
• At the Northeast Calhoun precinct in Houlka, a problem was reported on one TSX machine. Nine votes were cast on the machine before the problem was reported. The county dispatched a technician to the precinct. The machine was monitored and was found to be operating correctly.
• At the Vardaman precinct in Vardaman, one TSX machine malfunctioned. Three votes were cast on the machine before the problem was reported. The county dispatched a technician to the precinct and the machine was taken out of service after the problem was reported.
• Each political party’s county executive committee is responsible for providing testing on TSX machines. At the request of the parties, the Circuit Clerk and the county technician provided accuracy testing for this machine and the machine operated correctly prior to the election.
Hinds County
• Several Republican precincts in Hinds County experienced issues with electronic pollbooks. The electronic pollbooks were not consistently displaying voter history. Therefore, poll workers were instructed to manually check the paper pollbooks to ensure crossover voting did not occur.