by Leah Justice

leah.justice@tryondailybulletin.com

While incumbent Polk County Commissioner Ray Gasperson (D) was high vote-getter for the Tuesday, Nov. 4 election, the board of commissioner majority will remain the same, according to unofficial results obtained Tuesday night.

Gasperson won, along with newcomer Shane Bradley (R) and incumbent Keith Holbert (R). Democrats needed all three candidates to win in order to take over majority on the board.

Commissioner chairman Ted Owens was beaten on Tuesday, along with Bill Ingham (D) and Lee Mink (D).

Gasperson won over Bradley by 123 votes, with Bradley having just 54 more votes than Holbert.

Gasperson had 3,757 votes compared to Bradley’s 3,634 votes and Holbert’s 3,580 votes.

The winning candidates were followed by Ingham, with 3,555 votes, Owens with 3,538 votes and Mink with 3,498, according to unofficial results. The results do not include 15 provisional votes, which will be counted during the Polk County Board of Election’s canvassing, scheduled to be done next week. Even with provisional votes, the commisisoner results should not change, as Ingham was 25 votes behind Holbert

Board of education results

In other races, Polk County chose current chairman Geoff Tennant (Columbus Township) who won over challenger Paul Beiler by a wide margin, incumbent Sherry Page (Green Creek) won over Jeffrey Weaver by a wide margin and Jim Patterson won over Patrick Overholt for a Tryon Township seat by just 16 votes, according to unofficial results. Incumbent Judy Jackson (Coopers Gap) won with no one running against her. There were 26 write-in votes against Jackson.

Jackson had a total of 4,991 votes.

Tennant had 3,578 votes compared to Beiler’s 2,405; Page had 3,965 votes compared to Weaver’s 1,603 and Patterson had 2,681 votes compared to Overholt’s 2,665 votes, according to unofficial results.

Polk County voters were also in favor of a constitutional amendment with 4,359 “for” votes and 2,556 “against” votes, according to unofficial results.

Polk County voters also re-elected clerk of superior court Pam Hyder (D), who was running unopposed. Hyder received 5,965 total votes.