CHESTERTOWN — With all 10 precincts reporting before 10 p.m. Tuesday, June 23, Sam Shoge has a 130-vote lead in the Democrats’ four-candidate race for Kent County Commissioner.
Shoge has 1,024 votes, or 31.2%. The breakdown is 412 during early voting [June 11-18] and 612 on Election Day.
John Carroll is second with 894 votes, or 27.2%, followed by Thad Bench [816, 24.87%] and David Foster [547, 16.67%].
The top three vote-getters will move on to the General Election in November.
Shoge is a former Chestertown councilman.
Carroll is a former Galena mayor, and currently serves on the town council.
Foster is a former Chestertown mayor.
Bench is a first-time candidate.
According to the Kent County Board of Elections, there are about 1,830 mail-in ballots to be counted.
The first post-election mail-in canvass is Thursday, June 25 and the second and final mail-in canvass is July 6.
In between, provisional ballots will be counted on July 1.
All canvass activities will be done at 10 a.m. at the Board of Elections office at 135 Dixon Drive, Chestertown.
The Democrats’ county commissioners primary was the only local contested election on Tuesday.
The three Republican county commissioner candidates, all incumbents, automatically move on to the General Election on Nov. 3.
As of Tuesday night, Ronald Fithian [895, 34.4%] holds a narrow lead over Albert Nickerson [865, 33.2%] and John Price [838, 32.3%]
Also of interest for Kent County voters is the Democratic primary for District 36 state senator where Nivek Johnson leads John Queen, 2,454 to 1,779 with all 36 precincts reporting.
Johnson has 58% of the vote to Queen’s 42%.
District 36 includes Kent and Queen Anne’s counties and parts of Cecil and Caroline counties.
Johnson and Queen are both Kent County residents.
In Kent, voters chose Johnson over Queen, 791-498.
Republican incumbent Steve Hershey was unopposed in the primary.
Also, Republican Jay Jacobs of Rock Hall was unopposed in the primary in his bid to return as the District 36 delegate representing Kent County.
The Evening Enterprise will continue to update the results.