BY TRACY LEE TATE
Times Staff Writer
LAKE BUTLER — With a 26% voter turnout and a total of 288 votes cast, Rondoll Huggins squeaked by, with a margin of only 6 votes, to become the newest member of the Lake Butler City Commission.
After the polling place closed at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, the action moved to the office of the Union County Supervisor of Elections for the duties of the canvasing board and the hand-counting of the votes. A total of 238 ballots were cast on election day, with 50 vote-by-mail ballots completed earlier.
The canvasing board was made up of Lake Butler City Attorney John Maines, Union County Supervisor of Elections Debbie Osborne, Tammy Rodenberry, Ramona Dewees and Jenna Box, with Karleigh White serving as an assistant.
The total number of paper ballots were counted several times and each selection was called out so members of the public in attendance could keep their own count. Among those in attendance were past City Manager Dave Mecusker, current interim City Manager Richard Tillis and acting Mayor Annette Redman.
Vote-by-mail ballots were counted first, with 13 votes for Rondoll Huggins and 37 votes for Joe Stephenson. Next the election day ballots were counted several times with the result – 134 for Huggins and 104 for Stephenson. When the vote-by-mail numbers were added the final tally was 147 votes for Huggins and 141 for Stephenson.
Huggins will be sworn into Seat 2 on the commission on April 5, at a special meeting called for the purpose.
