FAYETTEVILLE — Steve Percival has been re-elected to the Zone 1 seat on the School Board by only two votes after the Election Commission audited the returns from Tuesday’s voting.
Percival, the incumbent, received 115 votes. Challenger James McGinty received 113 votes. The Fayetteville turnout in Zone 1 represented 2 percent of the 8,454 registered voters in Zone 1.
Percival will be certified the winner when the Election Commission meets Friday.
When the results were announced Tuesday night, it was believed five absentee ballots overseas due later could determine the outcome. However, commission staff determined Wednesday none of those ballots involved the Zone 1 race.
Wednesday’s audit confirmed the two-vote margin. John Logan Burrow, chairman of the Election Commission, said an audit is the same as a recount.
Percival said he was glad he has a chance to serve another term on the school board.
McGinty said he doesn’t plan to seek a recount since that was done Wednesday morning.
“I don’t see that I have any avenue except to accept that I lost,” McGinty said.
He does plan to bring issues forward to the board for action in the coming months, including a request to restore vocational programs in the schools and another request to require principals to be in school buildings to meet with teachers and parents.
Burrow said the commission also will certify results in five districts where school board candidates were running unopposed but received no votes. School districts that had no millage issues and no board contests didn’t open polling places. Votes in those districts could have been cast at the County Clerk’s Office as early votes.
The candidates who received no votes were Bleaux Barnes, Farmington; Shawn Shrum, Prairie Grove; Kendra Moore and Earl Hunton, Lincoln; Terry L. Reed, Greenland; and Owen McAdoo, West Fork.