Town vote totals are reported

The Sparta Town Council election held Tuesday yielded few surprises as 47 people turned out to cast ballots for the three incumbents.

There are a total of 1,003 registered voters in the town, making the voter turnout for the election 4.7 percent. No write-in votes were recorded, but one provisional ballot was cast.

All three men—Mayor John Miller, Council-man John Brady and Councilman Mike Parlier—were unopposed in their bid and each was re-elected to another four-year term. The office of mayor is elected separately from the council seats.

Miller received the most votes, with 46, while Brady and Parlier each received 43 votes.

All town officials are elected on a non-partisan basis.

The Alleghany County Board of Elections operates the town elections. Three of the county's Ivotronic electronic voting machines were set up for the election, although the polls were empty most of the day. The most votes recorded on any one machine was 17.

The Board of Elections will hold a hand-eye vote count on Nov. 6 at 8 a.m. and will canvass the votes on Nov. 10 at 11 a.m. The canvass is open to the public, as are meetings of the elections board. The provisional ballot will be considered during the canvass.

The Sparta Town Council's normal meeting room was used for voting, so the council's typical first meeting of the month was moved upstairs for the occasion. The council was meeting at 7 p.m. and vote results were delivered to them by Chair Ed Adams at just after 7:30 p.m.

"We all feel really good about getting 100 percent of the vote," Miller joked, drawing laughter from his fellow candidates On a more serious note, he said, "We are a little disappointed by the low turnout. We take that to mean that the town's citizens are very satisfied with the town government and we feel very good to be re-elected for another term."

Brady said, "We're just pleased with the results. I feel like a lot of good things are going on and I hope to see them continue.

Meanwhile, Parlier added, "I appreciate everybody coming out to vote for us. Hopefully we can serve the town and do bigger and better things."