The pro-Beauchamp v. anti-Beauchamp matchup ended 2:2. He got the Gen. Sessions Judge and Sheriff; he lost the DA and Chancellor.

Of course, he’s had a sheriff tell him to take a hike before, and could again. We’ll see what Paul White is made of.

Like AtomicTumor, it’s the General Sessions Judge race that was the most painful for me. It was so close, with Stuart leading in early voting, that I’m most anxious to see the precinct-by-precinct returns. Unfortunately, due to all the yes-no judicial races and such, the document is two hundred and a bunch pages, so the election commission will be charging for copies this year.

Truthfully, I don’t want a paper copy. I’d rather have it electronically, but with the new system, they don’t yet know how to do that. The Clinton Courier has already picked up the detailed returns, so it will be in their Sunday edition; the Oak Ridger usually carries it, but they hadn’t yet picked one up at 9:30 or so… and 10:00 is generally their deadline, so I’m not sure they’re going to carry it today. Maybe they kept track last night, but unfortunately, WYSH and Channel 12 weren’t reporting the results by individual precinct.

Just out of curiosity, I wonder how many people voted in this election who are currently under supervision of the probation department? That’s not illegal (unless they’re convicted felons), but it would raise eyebrows if there were any evidence of “persuasion” by probation officials.

I’m immensely glad that we have a new DA, and I have a great deal of confidence in Dave Clark. He simply will not ignore investigations that ought to go to the Grand Jury, and the process can work the way it is supposed to. And, contrary to some recent predictions, that one wasn’t even close. Of course, three-way races are notoriously tricky to predict. It was a three-way general that kept Ramsey in office sixteen years ago, with the narrowest of margins between all three.

Robin Biloski will do a fine job as the new 8th District Commissioner, along with veteran Iwanski. That really was a race with three good people, but I know that Robin will represent Oak Ridge well.

Lastly, in the 7th District, Joe Lee fell just one vote short, giving John Shuey the nod. However, that happened in 2002 with Jerry Creasey losing to Chuck Fritts by one, and irregularities led to the election being voided. Creasey won in a November rematch. I expect there will be a thorough review of why paper ballots were used on election day in this district, with a strong possibility of a challenge by Lee if anything looks amiss.