It turns out that the Athens City Council election isn’t over just quite yet.
While all the incumbents were defeated Saturday (results here), incumbent Aubrey Jones was beaten by Charles Elliott by the narrowest of margins. Just seven votes separated the two men.
There were also seven provisional ballots cast in the Jones-Elliott race, votes that were not counted in the unofficial totals released Saturday night.
So there are seven uncounted votes in a race that was decided by seven votes.
You can see the problem.
Henderson County Election Administrator Denise Hernandez told me that provisional ballots were used when there is a question about a voter’s eligibility. She said they allow the person to vote provisionally because “we don’t want to deprive anyone of their right to vote.”
After the election, the local ballot board decides whether the provisional vote should be counted or not. You can learn more about provisional voting in Texas on votetexas.gov.
The practical effect on this year’s Athens City Council race is that the election vote cannot be canvassed until the provisional votes are sorted out, and that might not happen until the end of the week. After that, there is a good chance Jones will ask for a recount.
So even though a council meeting was scheduled for tomorrow night to canvas the vote, that will likely get pushed back to next week.