by Leah Justice
leah.justice@tryondailybulletin.com

The Polk County Board of Elections conducted its official canvassing of votes last Friday, Nov. 14 to make the 2014 election results official with no changes to the winners previously announced.

In the local race for Polk County Commissioner, incumbent Ray Gasperson (D) remained high vote getter, followed by Shane Bradley (R) and incumbent Keith Holbert (R). Gasperson and Bradley won four-year terms with Holbert winning a two-year term. Gasperson, Bradley and Holbert will be sworn in on Dec. 1, with current commissioners Michael Gage (R) and Tom Pack (R), who will be up for re-election along with Holbert in 2016.

Gasperson received a total of 3,760 votes with Bradley 122 votes behind with 3,638 votes and Holbert 54 votes behind Bradley with 3,584 votes. Bill Ingham (D) lost a commissioner seat by 25 votes to Holbert, with incumbent Ted Owens (R) 19 votes behind Ingham and Lee Mink (D) trailing Owens by 39 votes.

In other local races, incumbent Polk County Sheriff Donald Hill (D) secured his second four-year term by beating challenger Pat Staggs (R) by 3,244 votes, according to the official canvass. Hill received a total of 5,398 votes to Staggs’ 2,154 votes with Hill winning by large margins in all of Polk’s seven precincts.

Friday’s canvass also did not change Polk’s school board election, with the closest race being between Jim Patterson and Patrick Overholt for a Tryon seat on the board. Patterson won by 17 votes, according to the official canvass, receiving 2,685 votes compared to Overholt’s 2,668 votes. Other winners for the Polk County School Board included all incumbents: Geoff Tennant won the Columbus seat, Sherry Page won the Green Creek seat and Judy Jackson won her uncontested Coopers Gap seat.

Polk County Clerk of Superior Court Pam Hyder (D) also won re-election in an uncontested race.

In state races, Polk County voters chose Thom Tillis (R) over incumbent Kay Hagan (D) for the U.S. Senate seat. Tillis received 4,155 votes compared to Hagan’s 3,079 Polk County votes with Sean Haugh (L) receiving 282 votes.

Statewide, Tillis won the seat with 1,422,694 votes, compared to Hagan’s 1,377,027 votes and Haugh’s 109,084 votes, according to the N.C. State Board of Elections.

Polk County Commissioner votes by precinct

	*Bradley	*Holbert	Owens	*Gasperson	Ingham	Mink
Coopers Gap	401	399	406	158	165	162
Columbus 7	573	582	558	555	533	522
Columbus 8	660	648	627	694	605	629
Green Creek	646	660	637	626	549	560
Saluda	429	378	367	337	301	306
Tryon	545	546	559	986	1020	947
White Oak	384	371	386	404	386	375
Total	3638	3584	3540	3760	3559	3501