Election Commission to hold emergency meeting regarding District 9 race
The Hamilton County Election Commission will hold an emergency meeting Thursday morning to determine if there should be a runoff election in the race for City Council District 9.
The meeting will take place at the Election Commission at 8 a.m.
Election Administrator Charlotte Mullis-Morgan said Wednesday that Election Commission Attorney Chris Clem and City Attorney Mike McMahon had been meeting throughout the day to discuss whether a runoff would be necessary in the District 9 race, which was not called Tuesday evening after no candidate emerged with enough votes to claim a 50 percent plus one vote majority—the amount required to win an election outright.
Former City Councilman Yusuf Hakeem scored six more votes than incumbent Councilman Peter Murphy. Hakeem tallied 1,030 votes, as opposed to 1,026 votes scored for Murphy.
But seven write-in votes kept Hakeem from claiming the 50 percent plus one vote total needed to claim victory. In fact, Hakeem would have only needed one of the write-in votes cast in his name instead in order to defeat the sitting councilman.
Mullis-Morgan said that in past elections, write-in ballots had sometimes not been included in final vote tallies because there was not an established write-in candidate waging a campaign.
"They're not always counted," Mullis-Morgan said.
The Hamilton County Election Commission is located at 700 River Terminal Road.
