The second Alcoa Board of Education seat might be decided on Monday when the Provisional Counting Board for Blount County meets.
With three candidates on the ballot and two seats on the board up for election, the two candidates receiving the most votes fill the seats. Incumbent Brandy Bledsoe (R) retained her seat with 1,619 votes in the unofficial total. Incumbent Julie B. Rochelle (R) holds a two-vote margin over challenger Travis Stinnett (I), 1,508-1,506.
The Blount County Election Commission released an update Thursday on the process.
The statement says, “There are a small number of votes yet to be counted. Therefore, leaving the race undecided at this point. The Provisional Counting Board, which is a standard process after each election, will meet Monday, Nov. 9, in the Election Commission Office to tally the remaining ballots. Results will be posted on the Blount County Election Commission website immediately after the completion of the process.”
A provisional ballot is a ballot issued to voters at a polling location when there are eligibility questions. Some of these reasons can be caused by a voter’s name not being on the registration list or a voter not having the required identification. The voter isn’t turned away, but allowed to cast a provisional ballot that goes into the physical ballot box and is not included in the unofficial totals released on Election Day.
The most common occurrences is a voter who did not have proper ID. The voter casts a provisional ballot and has two days to come to the Election Office to confirm their identity by proper identification.
On Election Day, officials expected around 100 provisional ballots to be in the boxes from all precincts. The exact number of provisionals from the precincts that could impact the Board of Education race isn’t released. The low number of provisionals cast means releasing that data could potentially identify a single voter.
The unofficial total indicate 4,633 votes were cast in the race. It also reflects that 2,040 voters — nearly one-third of Alcoa voters who cast a ballot, — chose to only vote for one candidate rather than two, or opted to not cast a vote in that race. The trend was higher during early voting than on Election Day, but statistically any provisional from Alcoa has a 1 in 4 chance of the voter deciding to have not voted in the Board of Education race.
The results will be posted to www.blounttn.gov/election on Monday after the board has met and considered the case for each provisional.
Alcoa voters are familiar with close races this year. County Commissioner Keenan Sudderth won the GOP primary for Seat 1-B, which includes portions of Alcoa, in May on a 270-269 decision over Andy Stanley.
