VAIDEN — Beat 2 incumbent Marcus Kuykendall came out on top in a narrow race for the Carroll County School Board after affidavit votes from Tuesday’s election were certified Wednesday.
The affidavit votes added 23 votes to county races but didn’t change any outcomes.
Kuykendall led Bonnie Wiggins by only five votes when the polls closed Tuesday night. After the affidavits were checked and counted, Kuykendall picked up two votes, and Wiggins picked up one.
“There were 49 total affidavits, and 23 were accepted, while 26 were eliminated because people were not registered to vote or were registered in another county,” Circuit Clerk Durward Stanton said.
If a name is not on the books at a precinct, a citizen is allowed to go ahead and vote and sign an affidavit that he or she lives in the county and is registered to vote. The votes aren’t counted until the voter’s address and registration are checked and found to be legitimate.
In Beat 1, incumbent Kenneth De-Loach was re-elected over Christopher Givens, 557 votes to 405.
This was Givens’ second run for the office. He ran against DeLoach six years ago and lost by only seven votes.
Givens said he was not sure what caused a wider margin in this race.
“I have heard there were a lot of people concerned about taxes being raised,” he said. “I think I did a pretty good job of talking to people. The results are what they are. I care about the county as a whole. It’s a good place to be. I’m sure they will do as good a job as they can.”
Kuykendall said he felt his race was close because many did not get out to vote. “There are 1,000 voters in the Ray’s Shop precinct,” he said. “I believe the weather contributed to the low turnout.”
He said he plans to “continue to try to serve people in Beat 2 as I have in the past.”
Wiggins said she did not know what made the difference in her loss. “I hope things will go well for him the next six years,” she said.
DeLoach was not available for comment Wednesday.
Turnout was smaller than expected and a little lower than usual in the county, Stanton said, though, at 50.5 percent, it was well above the national percentage of 42 percent. “Usually voting here is 60 percent plus,” he said.
Counting all those who voted in the House of Representatives race, there were 3,730 votes cast.
The only contested judgeship was in the Mississippi Court of Appeals, where Tyree Irving defeated Ceola James. Carroll County voters chose Irving by a large margin.
