Provisional ballots to determine Jemison election
Published 6:23 pm Wednesday, August 29, 2012
Jemison City Council District 4 candidates Rex Bittle and Russell “Rusty” Jones will have to wait another week to know who won in the municipal election on Tuesday.
Bittle received 57 votes and Jones had 55 votes, but questions concerning the city’s provisional ballots and whether a piece of land is within the city limits are delaying the final results of the District 4 race.
The ballots will not be official until Tuesday, Sept. 4 at noon, when the canvassing board or governing body of each city and town meets to canvass the election, plus absentee ballots.
Over the next seven days, the Board of Registrars will check to see if each person who submitted a ballot in Jemison is a resident within the city limits.
If they are city residents, the board will then determine in which district they voted.
Ballots submitted by people who live outside the city limits will not count.
The results will also depend on how many ballots are designated for each district.
“The purpose of the provisional ballot is to make sure that everybody gets to vote,” Chilton County Probate Judge Bobby Martin said. “Now whether the votes count or not is a different story.”
Before the provisional ballots are counted, the vote count stands at 57 for Bittle and 60 for Jones, which includes ballots completed on voting day and absentee ballots counted.
A request for recount of all votes may be submitted within 48 hours of the results of the provisional ballot count.