Election commission certifies Aug. 4 vote
Shelby County Election Commission workers prepare voting booths at Shelby Farms on Thursday Aug. 4. (Ziggy Mack/Special to The Daily Memphian)
Shelby County election commissioners put the Aug. 4 election to bed Monday, Aug. 22, by certifying the results of the county general election and state and federal primaries on the same ballot.
The five-member commission also set the field of four candidates for the special District 4 City Council race for the Nov. 8 ballot.
The commission is awaiting the noon, Sept. 14, deadline for candidates to file in the special race for Memphis City Court Judge Division 2 to set the field in the only outstanding race on the ballot.
The election commission plans to meet later on Sept. 14 to complete the ballot.
By the numbers in the certified results, a total of 137,908 of the county’s 583,829 voters — or 23.6% of the county’s voters cast ballots.
The certified total reflected 47 votes on a memory card that couldn’t be read election night but was tabulated later.
The addition to the tabulations did not change the outcome of any race on the long ballot that included judicial races that come up in this cycle once every eight years.
It did narrow and expand some margins of victory, however, in several close judicial races.
Melissa Boyd’s upset of incumbent Division 9 Criminal Court Judge Mark Ward changed from 167 votes to a 165-vote victory.
Incumbent Division 12 Criminal Court Judge Ronald Lucchesi’s win over challenger Mischelle Alexander-Best was narrowed to a 181-vote margin from 202 on election night.
The closest of the 13 races for Shelby County Commission in District 13 between incumbent Democrat Michael Whaley and Republican challenger Ed Apple changed from a 964-vote margin to a 965-vote victory for Whaley.
Whaley ran for a second term in a different district than the one he was elected to in 2018 because of redistricting.
Shelby County Elections Administrator Linda Phillips told commissioners before the Monday certification vote that there was a small difference in the number of voters on the “participating voters list” and the number of ballots cast.
With more voters on the PVL list than ballots cast, Phillips said the difference reflected voters who showed up to vote but then did not vote in any race. She also said it is a normal occurrence in elections.
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August 2022 election Shelby County Election CommissionBill Dries on demand
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Bill Dries
Bill Dries covers city and county government and politics. He is a native Memphian and has been a reporter for more than 40 years.
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