Aaron Robinson is expected to win the Pulaski County Dist. 11 justice of the peace race by nine or 11 votes, according to his Democratic opponent, Sandra Prater.
Robinson, a Jacksonville alderman and a Republican, will fill the seat vacated by Bob Johnson on the quorum court. Johnson ran unopposed as a Democrat for the seat currently held by term-limited state Rep. Mark Perry (D-Jacksonville).
The Pulaski County Election Commission was expected to certify the election results Friday evening in a close race that was decided by 10 or 11 votes out of 6,514 cast.
Prater had hoped 14 absentee overseas military ballots that the county clerk’s office had mailed out would give her enough votes to win. But Brian Poe, director of Pulaski County Elections, said Friday that only one of those ballots was returned by the deadline.
In the age of computerized voting and optical scanners, only three recounts have been requested since Poe began working for the election commission in 2007, he said, and not a single vote has changed as the result.
Prater was previously a state representative and a Pulaski County justice of the peace.
