Putnam Election Certified, Results Unchanged

The August 1 election certified by the Putnam County Election Commission Friday morning.

Administrator Michele Honeycutt said three provisional votes were added after the week-long process but no results changed. Honeycutt said the numbers they saw are a testament that every single vote is valuable in an election.

“Because we had the one that’s a tie, we have one in Algood where someone won by one vote,” Honeycutt said. “You know, and a lot of people think their one vote does not count, but that’s obviously not the case. So please get out and vote.”

Honeycutt said it is important for them to take the time to ensure every vote is counted properly before certification. She said they had one provisional vote that they were not able to include in the election.

“If someone thinks they’re registered and they’re not, we do check agencies to see if they’ve attempted to register to vote,” Honeycutt said. “We did have one of those and all the agencies that we check with the state said they did not have this person trying to register to vote anywhere.”

She said the provisional voting system is an important way to allow anyone who is eligible to vote even if they have issues with the registration process.

“We have, in Tennessee, the provisional vote that is, you know, if there was an issue either with their registration or they received a ballot by mail and decided not to vote that, so they’d rather vote in person,” Honeycutt said. “Different things for that with the provisionals we should count if it’s countable.”

Honeycutt said the election commission is waiting on Monterey to determine how it wants to handle its tied alderman vote.

“Mr. Foster did, I believe, my understanding is he has written a recent resignation letter,” Honeycutt said. “But now I do not know whether the city has accepted it or what they want. They’ll have to let me know.”

Honeycutt said she has not heard from anyone in Monterey and there is nothing for the commission to do until they receive word from the town.