Voters head to the polls a second time in less than a month to elect new Hilton Head mayor
Voters on Hilton Head Island will head to the polls for the second time in two weeks Tuesday, casting their ballots for a new mayor to finalize the revamped Town Council.
Alan Perry and JoAnn Orischak emerged from a three-way race between themselves and Michael Santomauro as the leading vote-getters, but Thomas Cleary — who withdrew from the race in early October, too late to be removed from the ballot — drew the third-most votes at around 1,300.
Anyone who was eligible to vote in the Nov. 8 general election can vote Tuesday, and will vote at their normal polling place. The polls open at 7 a.m. and close at 7 p.m, said Marie Smalls, director of the Board of Voter Registration and Elections of Beaufort County.
Smalls said 3,016 votes were cast during the early voting period last week.
Results will be available on the Beaufort County election board website, Smalls said, and will not be available through scvotes.gov as was the case in the Nov. 8 election.
Candidates reflect on messier runoff period
The slim gap that separated Perry and Orischak on election night has led to more contentious campaigning than in the lead up to the first vote. Perry trailed Orischak by just 440 votes after election night, according to scvotes.gov, and neither claimed the 50% of the vote necessary for victory under South Carolina law.
Orischak received 6,963 votes across all Hilton Head precincts, or 44.18% of the vote, according to official election results from scvotes.gov. Perry garnered 6,523 votes, or 41.39%.
Since then, both candidates agreed the tenor of the race became less civil.
Steven Baer, a former Beaufort County councilman, has criticized Perry in emails while supporting Orischak, suggesting Perry’s career as senior loan officer for Mortgage Network would compromise his independence from island realtors were he elected.
One post from Perry’s social media painted Orischak as an “agenda-less elitist.”
“I suppose to some extent, it could be expected (in a close race,)” Orischak said. “I was hoping it wouldn’t take that turn, but it has, unfortunately.”
Perry also noted more “personal attacks and untruths” in the last two weeks.
“I will tell you that some of her supporters – and I’m not saying it’s directed by anybody – but some of her supporters have started with some personal attacks,” Perry said. “The last thing we ever need to do is to damn each other, because that just divides the community. Unfortunately, I’ve seen that’s been happening on social media.”
Perry received a late endorsement from outgoing Mayor John McCann on Nov. 16, roughly a week before the runoff election date.
“Having the current mayor’s support is positive,” Perry said. “What he indicated within that support is that it’s about the quality of hours that you put in, not the amount of hours, and that is so true. (Mayor) isn’t designed to be a full-time, 60-hour-a-week job when you have a town manager that is well-educated and well-versed in running the town.”
Orischak, meanwhile, received Cleary’s endorsement shortly after the general election. Santomauro, who received 859 votes, has posted on social media indicating Orischak would be “closer to (his) platform” but emphasized he was not endorsing her.
“Whatever the outcome, voters will have done their due diligence, hopefully, and investigated the candidates independently,” Orischak said. “I’ll support whatever the outcome is. Should Mr. Perry win, I will support him. If voters see me fit to represent them as their next mayor, I will work tirelessly on their behalf.”
This story was originally published November 21, 2022 at 3:03 PM.
