With a 25-vote margin, Michael Dietz won Tuesday's runoff election to fill the vacancy on the Jacksonville City Council.
The unofficial election results came in shortly after 8:30 p.m., about an hour after the poll closed.
Unofficial results for the Ward 1, Position 1 seat are:
Michael Dietz 394
Jeff Elmore 369
Dietz, 61, will fill the seat that was vacated by the retirement of Council Member Kenny Elliott. His retirement was effective at the end of last year.
Dietz was unavailable for comment Tuesday night.
Tuesday's election became necessary after Dietz, a local Realtor, and Elmore, 49, a business owner, received the two highest vote totals in the original three-person race on June 10. In that election, Dietz edged out Elmore by a mere 12 votes.
The third candidate, Pat Thomas, finished with 19.8% of the vote. Because neither Dietz nor Elmore earned 50% of the vote, a runoff election had to be scheduled.
After the polling location closed Tuesday, Dietz held a 17-vote lead with all of the early voting and absentee ballots counted. He stretched that lead slightly after the 364 election day ballots were counted.
In all, 764 ballots were cast during the special election. By comparison, a total of 939 votes were cast on June 10. There are more than 15,400 registered voters in Jacksonville, according to the Pulaski County Election Commission.
Just like during the June 10 election, voters could vote at only one place, the Jacksonville Community Center. County election officials decided to hold the election at one polling location as a way to maintain social-distancing requirements among voters during the covid-19 crisis.
The June 10 election was the first held in Pulaski County since the start of the pandemic. Tuesday's was the second.
Dietz's term will expire Dec. 31, 2022.