Reporter for The Canyon Weekly
Candidates Tom Gray, John Whalen and Dennis Shaffer have secured wins in the race for Scio City Council after final election results were reported Dec. 1 by the Linn County Clerk’s Office.
Though the race had been neck-and-neck at times between Whalen, Schaffer and candidate Luke Zedwick, a clear lead emerged as more votes were counted.
The Dec. 1 results reflected this trend, with 249 votes for Gray, 187 votes for Whalen, 185 votes for Schaffer and 177 votes for Zedwick.
The four men had been vying for three open seats. Gray, Whalen and Zedwick are incumbents, Shaffer is new to elected office.
The race was too close to call on election night Nov. 8, with Whalen, Schaffer and Zedwick separated by only three votes by the last count that evening. As updates were published in the following weeks, the gap widened until Whalen and Schaffer had clear leads.
Though the final vote counts stills separates the men by only 10 votes, this is not a small enough percentage of the 843 total votes cast to meet the 0.2 percent threshold to trigger an automatic recount.
Scio City CouncilElection Winners
Tom Gray
John Whalen
Dennis Shaffer
