It was a mixed bag for voters in Marshall County, Tuesday night.
Ballots from all of the voting precincts were finalized Tuesday evening for the City of Plymouth, and for the Towns of Culver and Argos.
According to the Marshall County Clerk’s office 1,891 ballots were cast, resulting in about 23-percent of registered voters participating in this year’s General Municipal Election in Marshall County.
The ballots from Center Township in Plymouth arrived first, allowing those in “Election Central” at the Marshall County Courthouse to determine that Plymouth Mayor Mark Senter (R) would retain his seat after facing a challenge from Democratic candidate Rex Crump. With 61-percent of the vote, Senter received 864 votes compared with Crump’s 543.
In the Plymouth Common Council’s At Large race, Incumbent Mike Delp (R) received 21-percent of the vote followed by Gary Cook (D) and Jeff Houin (D) both at 17-percent. Duane Culp (R) was unchallenged in Plymouth’s District 1 and will return to the seat.
Incument Don Ecker, Jr. (R) defeated Max Schuh (D) 55-percent to 44-percent in District 2. In Plymouth’s District 3 Common Council race, Shiloh Fonseca (D) upset Wayne Smith (R) 55-percent to 44-percent. Incumbent Shawn Grobe (R) held-off Warren Allen (D) in District 4 on a 57-percent to 42-percent decision.
In the southern portion of Marshall County, the Town of Argos saw two competitive races, including for the Clerk-Treasurer seat and for the Argos Town Council. Lisa Mullaney (R) handily defeated Kelli Vanderweele (D) in the Clerk’s race 77-percent to 22-percent.
Juli Stauffer (R) and Craig Ellis (R) topped the list for the Argos Town Council. Dustin Johnson (D) and Charles Snead (R) remained tied at the end of the night with 23-percent of the vote.
A bit of time passed prior to Culver’s ballots arriving. A power outage caused the emergency paper ballots at the polling site to be used, likely slowing down the process.
Karen Heim (R) will retain her seat as Culver’s Clerk-Treasurer after defeating Gil Standley (D) with 67-percent of the vote.
For the Culver Town Council, Ginny Bess Munroe (R), Joel Samuelson (L) and Tammy Shaffer (D) led the pack.
According to the Election Summary Report around 400 individuals voted a straight party ticket for either the Republicans or the Democrats.
In total, 1,598 machine ballots were cast in Marshall County on Election Day.
