Monroe County 2022 results highlights: Hall for House; Pirani, Wyatt for school board; MCCSC referendum passes; turnout light

In races for Monroe County offices, outcomes for the 2022 general election on Wednesday night fell along predictable party lines in a county that leans heavy for Democrats.

So in contested races, the Democratic Party’s nominee won the race for sheriff (Ruben Marté over Nathan Williamson), county commissioner (Lee Jones over Perry Robinson), county councilor (Peter Iversen over Jim Allen), circuit court judge (Emily Salzmann over Carl Lamb), and recorder (Amy Swain over Paul White, Sr.)

In other races that did not involve Monroe County positions, but were still of great interest to Monroe County voters, the results were less predictable.

The State House District 62 race might have looked like a solid win for Democrat Penny Githens, if just the votes in Monroe County were tallied. She outpolled Republican Dave Hall in Monroe County by 10 points—55 percent to 45 percent. But that was not enough to overcome the plurality that Hall achieved in Brown and Jackson Counties.

Githens would have needed 59 percent of the Monroe County vote, in order to erase the advantage that Hall had in the other two counties. Even in Monroe County, Hall would have prevailed, if just Election Day votes had been tallied. On Election Day, Hall received 5,238 votes (50.46 percent) compared to 5,142 (49.54 percent) for Githens.

State House District 62

In the District 1 MCCSC school board race, which was a nonpartisan three-way contest, Erin Wyatt managed a majority of votes, getting just over 50 percent of the vote in the race, which also included Tabetha Crouch and Byron Turner.

In the District 3 MCCSC school board race, it was Ashley Pirani who won the three-way non-partisan contest with 46 percent of the vote. Daniel O’Neill got 33 percent of the vote, and Jon Hays received 21 percent.

The District 3 outcome might be counted as somewhat of a surprise, given the number of former and current elected officials who contributed money to O’Neill’s campaign.  Those contributors included: Regina Moore, Joyce Polling, Susan Sandberg, Patricia Williams, Iris Kiesling, Mark Kruzan, and Jacinda Gides. Among Pirani’s itemized contributions was one former elected, Ilana Stonebraker, who served on the county council in Tippecanoe County.

MCCSC School Board District 1

MCCSC School Board District 3

The MCCSC referendum passed with two-thirds of the vote in support of the increased property tax levy.

Based on the unofficial final numbers reported by Monroe County’s election division, turnout for Monroe County was about 33,500 voters, or about two-thirds the number who voted in the most recent mid-term elections, in 2018.  In 2018, about 52,000 Monroe County voters cast a ballot. According to Monroe County unofficial election results, turnout as a fraction of registered voters was about 34 percent.

Based on early voting numbers, a light overall turnout was expected. The daily tallies reported for early in-person voting totaled about 14,000—which looks like about double the total number of early in-person votes in any of the races reported Tuesday night. The B Square has inquired with the clerk’s office about that difference.

[Updated: Around 10 a.m. on Nov. 9, 2022, the county clerk’s office sent The B Square updated results, which appear to include additional early in-person votes: Nov. 9, 2022 updated results. The updated results report the turnout as a fraction of registered voters at 40 percent, which is an improvement of 6 percentage points. It does not appear at first glance that the additional 6,600 votes changed any outcomes, but did make the Githens-Hall race for House District 62 closer. By the B Square’s arithmetic, the fresh Monroe County numbers, when added to tallies from Brown and Jackson counties, make it a much closer race. It looks like Hall  has 12,975 (0.5007139274) votes compared to Githens 12,938 (0.4992860726). That’s a difference of just 37 votes.]

Monroe County Recorder

Monroe County Sheriff

Monroe County Circuit Court Judge

Monroe County Commissioner District 1

Monroe County Councilor District 1

MCCSC School Board District 1

MCCSC School Board District 3

MCCSC Referendum