Gregory, Hardway, Ratliff Win Board of Ed Seats

Only 21.3% of Braxton County’s registered voters made their intentions known during Tuesday’s Primary Election. Only three races were contested. Three seats were up for grabs on the non-partisan Board of Education. The top three in a field six were Larry Hardway to captured 874 unofficial votes. Followed by Kevin F. Gregory with 773 and Lisa Ratliff with 728. The remaining candidates vote totals are as follows: Carolyn Hoover 523, Bradley Shingler 517and Martha Dean with 379. Being a non-partisan race, the winners will take office on July 1.
Lisa Mace Godwin appears to have won a second term on the Braxton County Commission by beating challenger and former Commissioner Ron Facemire. Godwin garnered 630 votes to Facemire’s 333. Both were registered Democrats. No Republican was on the ballot in this race.
The only other race of major importance to local voters was the filling of Brent Boggs House of Delegates seat after he opted not to seek reelection. Lori Cowger Dittman easily outdistanced her Republican opponent, Duane Williams, 514 to 117 to win that party’s nomination. She will face Kevin Carpenter in the fall who was unopposed on the Democratic ballot.
In Braxton County a higher percentage of the registered Democrats went to the polls than Republicans. Of the 3,600 Democrats 1,011 or 28.08%. Of the registered 2,528 Republicans, 26.42% or 668 of them voted.
The poorest showing of registered voters going to the poll came from the 1,862 registered as Nonpartisan. In that group only 1.45% or 27 of them exercised their Constitutional Right to vote in Tuesday’s election.