After redistricting, most incumbents re-elected for Jasper County school board
Five of the seven sitting members of the Jasper County school board will retain their seats after a special election Tuesday, nearly five months after a federal judge approved new voting districts in the county.
Of the five board members re-elected Tuesday, only board chairwoman Berty Riley's challenger, Roy L. Pryor Jr., came within 100 votes, according to unofficial vote totals from the Jasper County Elections and Voter Registration Office.
Aside from Riley, Randy Horton of District 4 had the next-closest race among incumbents but still topped challenger Thaddeus Smith by 140 votes.
Three incumbents -- Bennie Hazel of District 1, Debora W. Butler of District 2 and Tedd Moyd of District 8 -- ran unopposed.
Newcomers Daisy Mitchell and Kevin Karg cruised to victories in the vacant District 5 and 6 seats, respectively; Mitchell captured 56 percent of the votes cast, while Karg collected 81 percent of the votes cast.
Only about 19 percent of the 16,880 registered voters in Jasper County voted in the special election Tuesday, according to the unofficial voting totals.
The special election held Tuesday capped a yearlong push to change the Jasper County school board's voting districts, started by a lawsuit filed against the school district in June 2014 by the ACLU. U.S. District Court Judge Richard Gergel called off the board's November 2014 elections last September after finding the districts to be unconstitutional. In April, Gergel approved new voting districts for school board elections, with the primary change splitting the Jasper County section of Sun City Hilton Head into two districts.
Gergel found that the voting districts had become unbalanced over time, with roughly half of them deviating by more than 25 percent in population; the courts recommend a deviation no more than 10 percent, according to filings from last year's lawsuit.
One of the two incumbents who failed to retain their seat Tuesday was Priscilla Fraser, one of the four plantiffs listed on the lawsuit that spurred the special election. In District 7, Fraser was narrowly beat by Jerold L. Murray, who captured 58 percent of the votes cast.
A fellow plantiff in the lawsuit, Louise Rawlings, lost the District 6 seat to Kevin Karg.
Leroy Bentley was the other incumbent to lose, dropping the District 9 race to Priscilla Green, who captured about 70 percent of the votes cast.
Follow reporter Matt McNab at twitter.com/IPBG_Matt.
Related content:
- Federal judge draws new districts for Jasper County school board, April 28, 2015
Unofficial results for the Jasper County Board of Education special election Tuesday:
District 1
Bennie Hazel (Incumbent): 236
Write-in candidates: 18
District 2
Debora W. Butler (Incumbent): 135
Write-in candidates: 15
District 3
Berty Riley (Incumbent): 240
Roy L. Pryor Jr.: 162
Write-in candidates: 1
District 4
Randy Horton (Incumbent): 250
Thaddeus D. Smith: 110
Write-in candidates: 4
District 5
Daisy L. Mitchell: 166
Jannette Z. Scott: 65
Rodney C. Brown: 61
Write-in candidates: 3
District 6
Kevin Karg: 614
Louise Rawlings: 129
Write-in candidates: 6
District 7
Jerold L. Murray: 296
Priscilla Jones Fraser (Incumbent): 205
Write-in candidates: 3
District 8
Tedd Moyd (Incumbent): 147
Write-in candidates: 8
District 9
Priscilla Green: 201
Leroy Bentley (Incumbent): 87
Write-in candidates: 1
This story was originally published September 22, 2015 at 9:44 PM with the headline "After redistricting, most incumbents re-elected for Jasper County school board."