Recount, Run-Offs Are Needed Following Tuesday's Primary Results

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Volusia County, FL - After Tuesday's primary results, Volusia County will have to hold several runoff elections in November and the contest for South Daytona Mayor was so close that the Office of Elections has called for a recount.

In the race for Mayor of South Daytona, only 5 votes separated Bill Hall, who got 1,302 votes, and George Locke III, who got 1,297. That's a difference of less than .2%. "Anything less than .25% triggers a manual recount," said Lisa Lewis, Volusia County Supervisor of Elections. "So we'll have a machine recount and a manual recount on Friday."

Two County Council races will be back on the ballot in November. In the race for County Council Chair, Ed Kelley got twice as any votes as incumbent Jason Davis but was about 2,500 votes shy of the majority needed to win outright. Heather Post got 42.51% of the vote in the race for County Council District 4, and Al Smith came in second with 27.52%. There will be a run-off in November for both of those contests.

"I'm happy with the turnout we had for the primary election," said Lewis. "We didn't have as many as we have had in the past at the polls, but overall this is our best primary that we've had in terms of voter turnout." That's because the turnout for early voting was the highest it's been since early voting started here back in 2004. 13,724 people voted over the 8-day early voting period. The previous high was set back in 2010 when 10,168 people voted.

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