John Marshall
John Marshall will be Gilmer County’s next Post 2 Commissioner.
In the runoff election held Tuesday, June 21, Marshall finished with 3,029 votes, while Tom Whatley finished with 1,534 votes.
The runoff was necessitated by results of the May 24 primary election, in which neither Marshall nor Whatley finished with the 50 percent plus one vote total needed to avoid a runoff.
Marshall is a native Gilmer County resident who ran Marshall Insurance Agency for many years and now focuses on operating rental properties including Austin Place Apartments.
Marshall said he’s “humbled by the level of support” shown by Gilmer’s citizens in the Post 2 race, and he “looks forward to working hard for the next four years to make Gilmer County the very best place it can be.”
Of the county’s 22,137 registered voters, 11.96 percent (2,647) voted on Election Day, while 8.75 percent (1,938) voted early in-person during the runoff’s one-week early voting time frame.
Chief Registrar Tammy Watkins said it was a “very high turnout” for a runoff election.
A total of 257 voted in the Post Two race by mail-in absentee ballot, also according to the registrar’s office.
Marshall will appear as the lone Republican Post 2 Commissioner candidate on November’s general election ballot, but he will be unopposed since there were no Democratic candidates in the race.
He will be sworn in as a commissioner in January 2023.