The City of Whitney and Whitney ISD are set to canvass the Saturday, May 3, election results in special meetings this week.
While the outcomes of those meetings were unavailable as of press time, it appeared that at least the Whitney mayoral race had flipped between election night and the tallying of mail and provisional ballots.
Shortly after the polls closed, unofficial election night results showed incumbent Mayor Janice Sanders trailing challenger Zach Hamlin by one vote, 75-74. Hill County Elections Administration released numbers Friday, May 9, showing Sanders ahead by one vote (76-75) over Hamlin.
In another tight race, newcomer Amy Teal was two votes ahead of incumbent Sam Pierce for a city council seat, 77-75, on election night. After the latest results were released, Teal had gained two votes and Pierce gained one, leaving Teal the likely winner, 79-76. Jason Ince was expected to keep his council seat after receiving 115 votes.
The City of Whitney originally scheduled a special meeting to canvass the election Thursday, May 8, but that meeting was rescheduled to 6 p.m. Tuesday, May 13, to allow the ballot board to verify and count all provisional and mail ballots.
After the election is canvassed, elected officials are expected to be sworn in to begin their terms.
Whitney ISD was set to canvass the election during the school board’s regular meeting on Monday, May 12.
Unofficial election night results showed incumbent Amy Hoffman receiving enough votes to retain her seat on the Whitney ISD Board of Trustees with 353, and Raygenna Heath received the next highest number of votes with 235 and is expected to fill the other available school board seat.
After the updated numbers were released, Hoffman had gained two votes and Heath had gained one vote.
The canvassing meetings had not yet occurred as of The Lakelander’s press time over the weekend. See next week’s edition for more information.
The Lakelander 