NEWBERRY — The Newberry County Council District 1 election will stand but after Monday’s protest problems with the election were revealed.
Candidate Tim Carroll, who was running as a Democrat, said he felt there needed to be a new election because a number of people voted in the wrong district and in some cases the number of voters did not match the votes.
Carroll lost the election to Scott Cain by some 63 votes.
Shanna Proctor, the deputy director of voter registration, said after the election it was discovered that some 34 voters were registered in the wrong district.
Voter registration chair Sam Price said that often the census and redistricting causes such problems.
While there were 34 miscast votes, none of the voters protested their vote at the polls or said they did not vote properly.
Carroll also contested that in some cases the voting machines were set to the ballot for district one more times that people signing in to vote in the district.
Proctor said this could have been a mistake that was corrected by the poll workers before the votes were cast and in none of the precincts were there more votes than those signing in to vote in the race.
The election commission denied the request for a new election and Cain stands as the winner.
Carroll said after the four hour hearing that in spite of the loss that he felt the citizens need to know about the issues and that the problems needed to be straightened out.
Cain said now that due process has been done that it is time for him to get to work with his new duties.
“We have a lot of work to do next year,” said Cain of his service on county council.
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