Beshear takes county and state

Lincoln County voted with the rest of the commonwealth as they gave Governor Steve Beshear a second term in heavier than expected voting Tuesday. County Clerk Sonny Spoonamore said that 24.3 percent of the county’s registered voters turned out for Tuesday’s election casting just over 4200 ballots. Many of the races were much tighter here than in other parts of the state, probably because the Republican candidates have made multiple trips to Lincoln over the past few months and the Democratic candidates have not been seen since the primary. Independent candidate for Governor Gatewood Galbraith campaigned here as late as last Friday.
Governor Steve Beshear trounced Republican challenger Senate President David Williams taking 56 percent of the total votes, but in Lincoln the gap wasn’t as large, which is attributable to Galbraith who took 14 percent of the local votes as opposed to only nine percent statewide.
Democrat Allison Lundergan Grimes, who took the primary election in May by only 1,000 votes statewide had almost that big a margin in Lincoln County alone this time. Grimes defeated Republican Bill Johnson 2,509 votes to 1,625 to secure the Secretary of State job.
Lincoln voters split closely on their choice for Attorney General. Republican challenger Todd P’Pool garnered 1,938 votes and the incumbent won with 2,159. Statewide, Democrat Jack Conway had a much easier time, obtaining 55 percent of the votes cast.
In the race for Auditor of Public Accounts, Lincoln voters were in line with the rest of the state giving Democrat Adam Edelen an easy win over Republican John Kemper. Edelen got 2,254 for local votes and Kemper received 1,769.
In the only race where Lincoln voters bucked the state trends, Republican K.C Crosbie took 2,140 votes for State Treasure while the Democrat, Todd Hollenbach only got 1,782. Crosbie’s edge in Lincoln didn’t help her win statewide however; Hollenbach beat the Republican by 2 percentage points. Independent Party candidate Kenneth Moellman was a distant third.
The only Republican to win a statewide race also won in Lincoln County. James Comer earned 62 percent of the local vote to handily win the race for Agriculture Commissioner, almost the same margin he beat Democratic contender Bob Farmer statewide.
Spoonamore reported that there were no major difficulties at the polls, however as the 6 p.m. closing time approached, poll workers noticed that some of the clocks on individual voting machines were incorrect, some late by as much as 45 minutes. The machines cannot be closed out nor votes tallied until the voting machine’s internal clock reaches 6 p.m., however they were able to be reset before they were able to delay the vote count.