Stanford winner of Ward 6 election for Hilton Head town council, results say
Glenn Stanford won the Ward 6 race for Hilton Head Town Council, according to election results posted by the Beaufort County Board of Elections.
Stanford garnered 52.6 percent of the vote — or 427 ballots. A runoff between the top two candidates is only necessary if no single candidate wins 50 percent of the vote, according to town code.
Jim Collett was next with 246 votes, according to election results from the elections board.
A total of 812 votes were cast in the special election.
County elections director Marie Smalls said results were certified by the board on Feb. 21.
Stanford will take over the council seat previously held by Mayor John McCann. He will serve until the term expires in 2020.
How the votes fell as of Wednesday at 1 p.m.:
- Stanford received the most votes with 52.6 percent.
- Collett was next with 30.3 percent of the vote.
- Cathy McClellan got 12.1 percent of the vote.
Kent Berry got 4.8 percent of the vote.
There were 2 write-in ballots, which account for less than one percent of the vote.
There are 5,030 registered voters in Ward 6, according to the board of elections. Tuesday’s election had a 16 percent voter turnout rate.
Background
The election became crowded quickly this year when three candidates — Berry, Collett and Stanford — announced their candidacy on Dec. 7.
A fourth, McClellan, announced on Dec. 13.
Stanford, 75, has lived on Hilton Head full time since 2006 after vacationing on the island as a teenager. He moved from Atlanta where he was a lawyer in a private practice.
He lives in Hilton Head Plantation and was the chairman of the town’s board of zoning appeals.
Stanford sits on the town’s planning commission and said he wants to continue working on solving workforce housing issues on the island and improve the safety of crosswalks.
Stanford also said that he believes Mitchelville, the site of the country’s first freedmen’s community, “can and should be” one of the “great stories of the United States.”
“I love this community,” Stanford said. “I want to see more of a focus on the residents of Hilton Head versus (a focus on) tourists.”
This story was originally published February 19, 2019 at 8:34 PM.
