Dan Leard will take the final seat on the Hartwell City Council after a tight final count on Tuesday night, according to unofficial results.
Hart County Board of Elections results show Leard defeated opponent Toy Cynthia Wilkins 215-175 in the runoff election on Nov. 30. Two provisional ballots were unprocessed by Wednesday morning.
“I am extremely humbled and touched by the outpouring of support from the community and I will never take that lightly,” Leard said Wednesday. “And I appreciate their vote of confidence and trust in me to be their councilman for the next four years.”
The seat in contention was that of councilmember Arthur Craft, who had decided to step away from his position and not run for reelection.
Four candidates were originally running for Craft’s seat, none of which took the majority on Election Day, resulting in a runoff between the top two.
In the original count, Dan Leard led the candidates with 378 votes, with Toy Cynthia Wilkins second with 223. Bonnie Clark had 108 votes while Tra Hill had 76.
Wilkins cut an original deficit of 155 votes to 30 in the runoff according to the unofficial tally.
Leard said he wasn’t necessarily surprised by Wilkins tightening up the deficit because “with a runoff, you just never know.”
“I was very impressed with the amount of voting that came through because you hear about other runoffs where only half of [the original] turnout comes out,” he said.
“I was very pleased with the amount of votes that I received and very pleased with the amount of votes that she received.”
Leard said he spoke with Wilkins the night before the runoff.
“We were very complimentary of each other just running a very clean and smart race,” he said. “And we said however the election turns out, both of us would be in each other’s corners moving forward.”
Leard is most looking forward to “representing the community and people that I love.”
“I always joke around telling other friends from outside that this is God’s country,” he said. “And I am very proud to be from this county and in the city of Hartwell. So for me, it’s being able to represent the people and having them at the heart of my decisions and hopefully doing the best I can do for the community.”
Leard said he was happy to be done with the “roller coaster” election process. On Tuesday night, he and his wife toasted with champagne then went right to bed, thinking, “Now the real work begins.”
“Thank you so much for the continued support and the votes and I will do my best to serve Hartwell in the future. Thank you to Cynthia. It was a fantastic race and a joy to meet her and to gain an ally.”