By Bob Armstrong
Despite some election day hiccups and setbacks due to machines, former Sanilac County drain commissioner Greg Alexander has established a commanding 366 vote lead over Joseph O’Mara in the race for the Republican nomination in the new 98th representative district.
The district covers Huron County, and most of Sanilac, Tuscola and Lapeer counties, with the exception of Worth township, 10 precincts in Tuscola County, and 4 precincts in Lapeer County following last year’s redistricting.
It was also reported yesterday that voting machines in 18 of the 38 Lapeer County precincts had malfunctioned, with new ballots being printed and any filled rejected ballots being placed in a locked bin after being cast so that election inspectors could go back after voting closed at 8:00 p.m. and duplicate those ballots’ votes onto a correct ballot for the tabulator to count. Due to this, there was a delay in results being reported.
Alexander currently has 5565 votes, O’Mara 5199, Kurt Damrow 4639, and Westley Tahash just under 600 votes. The winner will face democrat Bob Mroczek of Sandusky in the November general election.
Alexander and O’Mara were defeated two years ago by current representative Andrew Beeler. Beeler was victorious for the republican nomination for the 64th district in yesterday’s election.
