The race to fill a vacant seat on the Fort Oglethorpe City Council generated greater voter turnout percentage-wise this afternoon than a Catoosa County proposal to reauthorize a 1-cent sales tax for another five years.
A total of 443 votes had been cast around 2 p.m. in the race between veteran politician Judd Burkhart and newcomer Clay Kissner to temporarily fill the seat left vacant by Eddie Stinnett who died in November of a heart attack.
That’s about 10 percent of the city’s 4,675 registered voters.
“That’s pretty good, considering it’s just for one seat,” Election Superintendent Orma Luckey said.
Meanwhile, a total of 973 votes had been cast at 2 p.m. countywide to decide whether to continue Catoosa County’s 1-cent special purpose local option sales tax until 2019. The current tax is due to phase out in 2014.
That turnout represents a little more than 2 percent of the county’s 41,806 registered voters.
“It’s slow,” said Tonya Moore, director of the county’s Board of Elections and Registration.
Polls are open until 7 p.m.
See tomorrow’s Times Free Press for election results.
Tim Omarzu covers Catoosa and Walker counties for the Times Free Press. Omarzu is a longtime journalist who has worked as a reporter and editor at daily and weekly newspapers in Michigan, Nevada and California. Stories he's covered include crime in blighted parts of metro Detroit and Reno, Nev.; environmental activists tree-sitting in California's Sierra Nevada foothills; attempts by the Michigan Militia to take over a township¹s government in northern Michigan. A native of Michigan, ...
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