Tuesday’s historic election that saw Barack Obama elected president also brought out a record number of Jackson County voters. Some 77 percent of the county’s voters, a little over 23,000 people, cast a ballot either in early voting or on Tuesday. About 10,000 people participated in early voting in the county.
Tuesday’s historic election that saw Barack Obama elected president also brought out a record number of Jackson County voters. Some 77 percent of the county’s voters, a little over 23,000 people, cast a ballot either in early voting or on Tuesday. About 10,000 people participated in early voting in the county.
Most of those votes were not in support of Obama as the county voted overwhelmingly, 17,772 to 4,947 for Republican John McCain for president.
The county also favored all other Republican candidates on the ballot as well. Locally, Jackson supported Republican incumbent state Senator Ralph Hudgens 13,275 over Democrat Tim Riley’s 4,715 votes. Hudgens won district-wide as well over Riley.
For Congress, Jackson also supported incumbent Republican Paul Broun over Jackson County resident Democrat Bobby Saxon 16,166 to 5,964. Broun also won district wide by a 61 percent to 39 percent margin.
In the United States Senate race, incumbent Republican Saxby Chambliss had 15,765 votes in Jackson County while Democract challenger Jim Martin had 5,414 votes. Liberterian Allen Buckley had 1,048 votes. State-wide, the Senate race results were not final at press time. It appeared as if Chambliss might be headed into a run-off.
In the Georgia Public Service Commission race, former Commerce resident Lauren McDonald appeared to be headed into a run-off. District-wide, he had 1.619 million votes, or 48 percent, while Jim Powell had 1.606 million votes. Libertarian Brandon Givens had 166,906 votes.
