Benton County sets 11 runoffs Nov. 23

Thursday, November 11, 2010

— Nine mayoral candidates, 10 city council candidates and two city clerk candidates are headed for the Nov. 23 runoff election in Benton County.

Mayoral candidates in Cave Springs, Gentry, Highfill and Rogers; city council candidates in Bella Vista, Gentry, Gravette and Lowell; and two city clerk candidates in Gentry will have the three weeks to convince voters to recast ballots in their favor.

Gentry City Clerk Jo Ellen Martin said getting voters to return to the polls will be the biggest challenge for those in runoff elections.

“When there’s a runoff, the hard thing is getting people to vote again,” Martin said. “You always have a lower turnout for runoffs.”

Martin will face Tamela Weeks in the runoff election for Gentry city clerk.

Weeks said she was relieved when she found out she was in the runoff because there had been six candidates running for the position.

“I’m relieved to be in the runoff because I know Jo Ellen was a really strong candidate as the incumbent, and it’s always hard to take on an incumbent,” Weeks said.

Martin has been city clerk for 16 years.

The two women said they will use the same strategy to win the runoff as they used to get votes in Tuesday’s election.

“I’m going to knock on doors, meet people face-to-face and assure people of my qualifications,” Weeks said.

Martin said she also will knock on doors to make sure people are aware of the importance of voting in the runoff election.

More than half of the registered voters in BentonCounty cast a ballot on Nov. 2. The preliminary and unofficial results reported by the Election Commission at 1:55 a.m. Tuesday showed 53,510 voters castballots. There are 105,973 registered voters in the county.

Early voting for the Nov. 23 runoff will be from 8 a.m. until 4:30 p.m. Nov. 16-22 at the county clerk’s offices at 300 W. Poplar St. in Rogers, 707 S. Lincoln St. in Siloam Springs and at 215 E. Central Ave. in Bentonville.

News, Pages 1 on 11/10/2010