Mitch Wiggins is the new mayor of Caledonia.
A lone accepted affidavit ballot today put the former alderman over the top, by a 199-198 margin, as he defeated incumbent Bill Lawrence.
The race was tied after in-person and absentee ballots were counted Tuesday night. Election commissioners rejected four other affidavit ballots this morning — two of the voters are not registered and two live outside the city limits.
“I have a deep gratitude to the citizens of Caledonia for entrusting me with the job of mayor for the next four years,” Wiggins said today. “The community is divided, but we need to work together to deal with the issues our community faces.”
This was the second Caledonia town election this cycle. Commissioners threw out the results of a June 6 election because a commissioner improperly handled the ballot box and three counts of the ballots rendered three different results. Lawrence led in two of those, and the other showed the race tied.
“It’s more than surreal,” said Lawrence on Tuesday night, after the race was extended by another day with the tied margin.
The same five candidates who had the most votes in the June 6 election again won seats on the board.
In Caledonia, the aldermen are selected as at-large representative. The top five vote-getters among the nine candidates won seats on the board.
Incumbents Quinn Parham and Bill Darnell, who won his 10th term Tuesday, will be joined by newcomers Tammy McCool, Tyler Brock and Matt Furnari.
Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].
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