Potts Defeats Pelham for Alachua City Commission

ALACHUA ‒ Tuesday night Ed Potts beat out Gregory Pelham for seat 2 in the City of Alachua Commission race. Potts received 715 votes representing 53 percent of the 1,340 votes cast while Pelham received 625 votes representing 47 percent of the vote. With three precincts open for voting, the race was tight up until the Turkey Creek precinct was counted.

The election vote count was scheduled to start at 8 p.m. at City Hall, but was delayed for 35 minutes until election staff at the Cleather Hathcock, Sr. Community Center delivered the ballots from that precinct. Once those ballots arrived, the Hathcock Center was the first precinct counted, giving Pelham a large lead of 243 votes to 40 votes for Potts.

Legacy Park precinct was tallied next, adding 176 votes for Pelham and 243 votes for Potts, which still gave Pelham a commanding lead of 419 to 283.The last voting precinct to be counted was Turkey Creek, and that changed everything. Pelham received 85 votes while Potts received 409 votes to make the total 504 for Pelham and 692 for Potts.

Absentee—or mail-in ballots— were counted next. Interim City Manager Mike DaRoza explained the process saying that those ballots were not yet counted but were about to be inspected and hand counted in front of the audience.

Three city staff sitting at a table in view of the audience opened each of the 142 mail-in ballots with one staff opening the ballot envelope and handing it to the next person who removed it from the sleeve and handed it to a third person to lay the ballot on the table face down. They proceeded to count the votes with Pelham receiving 119 votes and Potts receiving 23 votes.

All mail-in ballots were displayed on the table for the panel to review as well as the candidates and public. However, it didn’t matter in the end, since even if all the mail-in ballots had been for Pelham, there were not enough to overcome Potts' lead.

The panel approved the final vote tally in favor of Ed Potts, 715-625. Potts will be sworn into office during the regular City Commission meeting on April 25 at 6 p.m. and take his seat on the Commission.

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