by Leah Justice
leah.justice@tryondailybulletin.com

Polk County voters turned out about half for the 2014 election with 7,647 votes cast for both early voting and Election Day. The totals do not include approximately 15 uncounted curbside votes and are unofficial until next week.

The voter turnout for Tuesday’s election was 49.4 percent with a current 15,494 registered voters in the county.

Columbus 8 (Isothermal Community College) had the highest turnout for Polk’s seven precincts at 54.8 percent, followed by Tryon with 51.3 percent voter turnout, according to final, unofficial votes.

Green Creek had the third highest turnout at 49.6 percent, followed by Saluda in fourth at 49.3 percent, Columbus 7 (Polk County High School) at 48.4 percent, White Oak in sixth with 45 percent turnout and Coopers Gap in seventh at 42.6 percent voter turnout.

The turnout is down from the last county election in 2012 (presidential election year), where Polk saw a 72-percent voter turnout. The last non-presidential election year in 2010, Polk had a 52.8 percent voter turnout. In 2008, which was also a presidential election year, Polk County turned out more than 70 percent of its voters, casting 10,790 total votes

Early voting this year included 3,684 of the total votes, so Election Day saw 3,963, slightly more than early voting. The first day of early voting on Oct. 23 there were 800 total votes cast.

Of the 3,684 early votes cast, Democrats led with 1,266, but Republicans were just nine votes behind with 1,257 early votes. There were 1,154 Unaffiliated votes cast early and seven Libertarian early votes, according to the Polk County Board of Elections.

Locally, Tuesday night’s winners included incumbent Polk County Sheriff Donald Hill retaining his seat for another four years. Polk County Commissioners included high vote-getter incumbent Ray Gasperson (D) and newcomer Shane Bradley (R) winning four-year terms and incumbent Keith Holbert (R) securing a two-year term.

Gasperson won with a total of 3,757 votes, with Bradley in second with 3,634 votes and Holbert securing the third seat with 3,580 votes. Challenger Bill Ingham (D) lost by a mere 25 votes with 3,555 total, with incumbent Ted Owens (R) coming in fifth with 3,538 votes and Lee Mink (D) in sixth with 3,498 votes, according to unofficial results.

Gasperson won in Columbus 8 and White Oak with Holbert winning Columbus 7 and Green Creek and Bradley winning in Saluda.

Gasperson had 694 Columbus 8 votes with Bradley getting 660 Columbus 8 votes and Holbert receiving 648 votes.

In White Oak, Gasperson received 404 votes compared to 386 each for Owens and Ingham.

In Columbus 7, Holbert received 582 votes, compared to Bradley’s 573 and Owens’ 558 votes.

In Green Creek, Holbert received 659 votes, compared to Bradley’s 645 and Owens’ 636 votes.

Bradley won Saluda with 429 votes, compared to Holbert’s 378 and Owens’ 367 votes.

The democrats won big in Tryon, with Ingham getting the most there at 1,018, Gasperson following in Tryon with 984 and Mink being Tryon’s third favorite with 945 votes. Republicans did not do well in Tryon with Owens getting the most Tryon votes at 558, Holbert next with 545 and Bradley with 544.

Owens won the Coopers Gap precinct with 406 votes, with Bradley in second for Coopers Gap with 199 and Holbert in third with 197 Coopers Gap votes.

Polk County Commissioner votes by precinct

	*Bradley	*Holbert	Owens	*Gasperson	Ingham	Mink
Coopers Gap	399	397	406	158	164	162
Columbus 7	573	582	558	554	532	521
Columbus 8	660	648	627	694	605	629
Green Creek	645	659	636	626	549	560
Saluda	429	378	367	337	301	306
Tryon	544	545	558	984	1018	945
White Oak	384	371	386	404	386	375
Total	3634	3580	3538	3757	3555	3498

 

Polk County Sheriff votes by precinct

	Pat Staggs (R)	* Donald Hill (D)
Coopers Gap	200	399
Columbus 7	294	866
Columbus 8	359	978
Green Creek	407	889
Saluda	267	468
Tryon	370	1220
White Oak	255	573
Totals	2152	5393

* denotes winner