SNOW HILL – Close races for the District 3 and District 4 county commissioner seats could be decided by mail-in ballots.
While candidate Eric Fiori leads District 3 candidates by 34 votes and incumbent Ted Elder leads the District 4 race by 18 votes, mail-in ballots could impact standings. Election officials started canvassing mail ballots Thursday.
“Our final canvass and certification is Friday, July 29,” said Patricia Jackson, election director for the Worcester County Election Office. “If a race is close, it may be the 29th before a winner is declared.”
Fiori Leads In District 3
As expected, four-candidate fields in both districts resulted in relatively close races. In District 3, Fiori, who received 39 votes in early voting, got an additional 254 votes on Tuesday to lead the field with 293 votes. Tim VanVonno, who received 46 early votes, received 213 votes on election day, resulting in a total of 259 votes. Thomas Gulyas, the former Berlin councilman led in early voting with 49 votes, was sitting in third by the end of Tuesday with a total of 237 votes. Shawn Kotwica rounded out the field with 11 early votes and 102 election day votes.
Fiori said he was cautiously optimistic this week but acknowledged that mail- in ballots were a concern.
“The numbers are close enough it could throw the election,” he said. “I’m cautiously optimistic. We had a hard-fought battle.”
He said he’d enjoyed campaigning and thanked his wife and kids, ages 4, 6 and 11, for their help representing him at the polls on Tuesday.
District 3 Commissioner candidate Eric Fiori is pictured at the Ocean City Elementary election site with daughters Elianna and Lucy. Submitted Photo
“They were troopers, out there all day getting votes for their dad,” he said.
He added that he’d enjoyed campaigning, which primarily involved attending community events and meeting voters one-on-one, and said that he’d been pleased to encounter truly engaged voters during his visits to the polls.
Gulyas congratulated Fiori on social media Wednesday morning and also acknowledged VanVonno and Kotwica.
“Gentlemen,” he wrote. “It was a fun, clean race. I got to know more about all three of you and I’m a better person for it. We need to embrace Eric’s win and we wish him the best of luck in his political career.”
VanVonno congratulated his peers on their efforts campaigning but noted there were 228 mail-in ballots out in District 3 and was not ready to concede until the election was certified.
“I am 34 votes behind Fiori and statistically it’s possible to overcome that,” he said. “There’s also more ballots arriving possibly …. Congratulations to Eric on his current lead and one way or another we will know next week 100%. It’s been a great experience. It’s come down to a really small margin, but I thank everybody in my district that voted.”
According to Jackson, Thursday’s canvass will encompass the majority of received ballots. The office has to hold back 10 ballots of each ballot style, however, for the July 27 and July 29 canvasses, to protect voter privacy in case the office only receives one ballot after Thursday’s canvass. Ballots are accepted if they are postmarked July 19 and received in the office by July 29 (to allow for mailing time and overseas ballots).
Too Close To Call In District 4
The District 4 race was even closer than the District 3 competition by the time polls closed Tuesday. Incumbent Elder, who led with 39 early votes, received 175 votes on election day to end Tuesday with 214 votes. He had a narrow lead over former commissioner Virgil Shockley, who switched to the republican party. Shockley received 25 early votes and 171 election day votes, ending up with a total of 196 — just 18 fewer than Elder. Jeff McMahon, the recently retired Worcester County fire marshal, received 30 early votes and 161 votes on Tuesday, ended with 191 votes — just five fewer than Shockley. Nancy Bradford, who received 33 early votes, got 156 votes on election day to end with a total of 189 votes — just two fewer than McMahon. With mail-in ballots yet to be counted, just 25 votes separate all four candidates.
According to the election office, there were 165 mail-in ballots issued in District 4. The bulk of them, 102, were issued in precinct one, which is the Snow Hill area.
“At this particular moment I think it’s too close to call,” McMahon said Thursday as he prepared to go watch the ballot canvass at the Worcester County Election Office. “If I lose I do plan to call and concede, I just don’t know to who at this point.”
He added that he had encouraged voters to use mail-in ballots if they were going to be out of town.
“Let’s wait and see what the mail-ins bring,” he said.
Elder, recounting a prior conversation in which he’d pointed out that with four candidates District 4 could be won with as little as 27% of votes, said he too was just awaiting the mail-in ballot count.
“It’s crazy,” he said. “Going back through all my races, it’s always been close. There was even one time I had a tie in a primary. It’s not new but you never get used to it.”
Like all the candidates in this year’s primary, he said he appreciated the respectful campaigning that occurred.
“It was a clean race all the way around,” he said.
He added that he was just waiting for the final ballot count.
“I’m not planning on running any more but I would really like this last term,” he said.
Bradford, a Bank of Ocean City employee making her first run for commissioner, thanked her supporters on social media as the polls closed Tuesday. Though technically in fourth place, she sits just 25 votes behind Elder.
“Regardless of the outcome, I have thoroughly enjoyed the experience and getting out to meet those in our community. Thanks again to all of those who supported me in my campaign,” she wrote.
Voter Turnout Totals
Worcester County Election Office data shows that voter turnout decreased for the 2022 primary. Of 32,654 registered voters in Worcester County, more than 57% are registered republican. There are 18,802 registered republicans and 13,852 registered democrats.
There were 6,866 ballots cast in the primary, with 4,852 on election day and 1,208 through early voting. Of the ballots cast, 4,852 were republican and 2,014 were democrat.
In total, voter turnout was 21.03%. Previously, for the presidential primary in 2020, voter turnout was 40.31%.
As far as ballots cast, the hotly contested District 3 race saw the most, with 902 — 145 of those were through early voting while 757 ballots were cast election day. In District 4, there were 790 ballots cast — 127 in early voting and 663 on election day. In District 5, which was won by incumbent Commissioner Chip Bertino, there were 804 ballots cast. In District 6, which was won by incumbent Commissioner Jim Bunting, there were 888 ballots cast.
