By BILL MARDIS, Editor Emeritus
Nearly 4,000 voters in five northern Pulaski County precincts are eligible to participate in a special election February 2 to fill the unexpired term of former state Rep. Jimmy Higdon who resigned earlier this month after being elected to the state Senate.
Higdon, a Lebanon grocer, represented the 24th House district for the past seven years. The 24th District is made up of Marion and Casey counties and five precincts –– Eubank, Buncombe, Mt. Zion, Ansel and Fall Branch –– in Pulaski County.
Eubank has 1,167 registered voters; Ansel has 461; Buncombe has 965; Mt. Zion has 714; and Fall Branch has 651. Only registered voters in the five Pulaski County precincts in the 24th House District are eligible, along with voters in Marion and Casey counties, to mark ballots in the special election. Pulaski countians who live outside the 24th District can’t vote in the special election.
Republican and Democratic executive committees in the counties involved will meet in coming days to choose a nominee for each party. According to the Associated Press, car dealer Bill Pickerill and state employee Leo Johnson are being considered for the GOP nomination. Dairy farmer Joe Paul Mattingly and Social Security Administration retiree Terry Mills are being considered for the Democratic nomination. Mills has filed in the regular election process to fill the 24th District seat.
The term of the winner of the special election will end at the first Monday in January 2011. To be a candidate for a full term the winner of the special election would have to file as a candidate during the 2010 election cycle.
Rick Barker, member of the Pulaski County Board of Elections, said the special election in five precincts will be a “good opportunity” to test the county’s new voting equipment –– paper ballots and optical scanners –– that will be used in 2010 local elections.
The special election will be conducted in the same manner as a regular election. Walk-in absentee voting will begin in the county clerk’s office January 13 and requests for mail-in absentee ballots are being accepted. Both types of absentee voting are for voters in the five precincts who will be out of town on Election Day.
Barker predicts a “ ... slow turnout on a cold February day” because none of the mentioned possible nominees lives in Pulaski County.
