Whitfield wins in a cake walk
Businessman takes 73 percent of commissioner votes
After one of the more contentious campaigns in recent memory, Walker County’s voters have rejected a 16-year veteran and instead have decided to put a new face to lead local government.
GOP candidate Shannon Whitfield was elected to the office of Walker County commissioner in a three-way race that pitted him against incumbent Bebe Heiskell and Independent candidate Perry Lamb.
“This is a great night,” Whitfield said at a gathering of supporters awaiting the election results. “It’s been exciting. We’ve had a ton of people praying for me and my campaign.
“I look forward to letting the dust settle and then bring everyone in the county together.”
Though not yet certified, Elections Supervisor Danielle L. Montgomery said the preliminary count shows Whitfield garnered 17,361 (72.8 percent)votes, while Heiskell collected 2,960 (12.4 percent) votes and Lamb was chosen by 3,503 (14.7 percent) voters.
Results show Whitfield winning in a landslide, both on election day and in advance (mail in + inperson) voting where his name was selected on 10,591 ballots. By comparison, Heiskell’s name was chosen on 1,867 advance ballots while Lamb was selected by 1,972 advance voters.
Four years ago, Heiskell was elected to serve a fourth term as the county’s sole commissioner by a scant 200-vote margin over challenger Dr. Paul Shaw in the GOP primary. Almost immediately, her opponents regrouped and began building a foundation for Heiskell’s ouster.
The Republican rift, similar to that which has affected the national party, led to the local party’s shift of allegiance to another challenger: Shannon Whitfield, and Heiskell’s decision to run as an Independent.
“They’re for nothing and against everything,” Heiskell said of the Tea Party’s refiguring of the local GOP.
But challengers Whitfield and Independent Perry Lamb, ran campaigns that called for change — a top-to-bottom restructuring of how the county is run — including a possible change from governance by a sole commissioner to a multi-member board.
Results of the acrimonious election show that call for change resonated with a majority of those who chose to participate.
And participate they did.
Slightly fewer than half — 14,796 — of Walker County’s nearly 33,000 registered voters participated in advance voting for this general election, according to Brittany Richardson, clerk with the Walker County Election and Registration Department
Those early voting numbers include 13,833 who voted in person and 963 who mailed in their ballots prior to Tuesday, Richardson said.
Polls were open from 7 a.m. until 7 p.m. on election day and voting was both steady and heavy throughout the day — so much so, that each of the county’s 11 precincts had lines of voters waiting to cast ballots when the polls closed.
According to LaFayette precinct managers, the parking lot of the LaFayette Senior Center was at full capacity an halfhour before the polls opened Tuesday. The atmosphere has been described as “very calm” even as lines formed in hallways and even outside the building.
At Chickamauga’s precinct, there was a rush when the doors opened and voting was steady all day, officials said.
“This has been one of the most phenomenal turnouts we’ve ever seen,” Chickamauga precinct manager Cristal Whitlock said.
Accommodating those late-comers who arrived before 7 p.m. — many had come straight from work or school — is required by law and meant tallying ballots was delayed for nearly an hour, according to election officials.
Asked if there was any one thing that had made such a resounding victory possible, Whitfield, without pause, said, “We had a very clear message, one that was simple to understand: it’s a message of economics. Focusing on the numbers, the budget and the (county) debt were key.”