In the Tuesday, Nov. 7 election, there were three open seats on the Summerfield Town Council and those seats went to Lynne Williams DeVaney, who got 1,516 votes, Jonathan Hamilton, who got 1,316 votes, and Heath Clay who got 1,265 votes –
But, wait, not so fast.
The candidate who came in fourth, long-time Town Councilmember Reece Walker, who really enjoys being on the council, ended up with 1,253 votes, which means he came within 1 percent of Clay and can therefore request an automatic recount.
Just as in sports, when it comes to elections, it’s not over ‘till it’s over.
Guilford County Elections Director Charlie Collicutt confirmed on Wednesday, Nov. 8, that the difference between Heath and Walker was small enough to require some further counting should Walker want it.
“Yes, he will have the right to request the recount,” Collicutt wrote in an email. “The law for a multi-seat contest is a less than a 1 percent margin of votes cast just for the two candidates involved – in this case, the 3rd and 4th place finisher. So, they had 2,518 votes cast between them, then a 12-vote margin… these 12 votes represent a .47 percent margin, so less than 1 percent.”
What makes it even more exciting is that not all the votes have been counted yet.
The elections office has in its possession four provisional ballots for the race that may or may not count – depending on the decisions made by the Guilford County Board of Elections.
“We haven’t researched yet on all of those,” Collicutt stated of those votes.
He added that, for this election, his office still can accept mail ballots received by Friday, but only if they are postmarked by election day or earlier.
