The city of College Station has announced the winner of the city council runoff election is John Nichols.
City officials issued a statement Thursday morning that the Brazos County elections office received three out of 1097 mail ballots by Wednesday’s deadline.
While the deadline is Monday to receive as many as 499 military ballots, Nichols leads the place five runoff by 1475 as of Tuesday night.
Click below for comments from John Nichols, visiting with WTAW’s Bill Oliver.
News release from the city of College Station:
On Tuesday, the unofficial tabulation was:
Craig Regan: 512 (20.49%)
John Nichols: 1,987 (79.51%)
On Wednesday, the Brazos County Elections Administrator notified the City of College Station that only three (of the 1,097 possible) mail ballots were received by the 5 p.m. deadline.
While military ballots (499 remain out) may still be received until Monday, Dec. 21 at 5 p.m., those numbers — combined with the three mail ballots received — are not large enough to overcome the 1,475-vote lead held by Councilman Nichols.
Therefore, Councilman Nichols will be re-elected to his Place-5 seat and will receive the oath of office on Tuesday, Dec. 29 at 4 p.m. His term will run through 2024.
Update: December 17, 2020:
The final unofficial results of the College Station city council runoff election will not be known until Monday evening.
The deadline to receive the remaining 1097 mail ballots is Wednesday. But Brazos County elections administrator Trudy Hancock says they will count all remaining ballots on Monday after the deadline passes to accept up to 499 military ballots that were not returned by election day.
No winner was declared Tuesday night because John Nichols’s lead over Craig Regan is less than the number of ballots that could still be counted.
Nichols has 80 percent of the votes that were tabulated through Tuesday night.
Original story:
The outcome in the runoff election for the College Station city council place five seat might now be decided until next Monday.
After 566 voters on Tuesday, 1011 early voters, and the receipt through Tuesday of 921 mail and military ballots, John Nichols leads Craig Regan 1987-512.
The outcome could change because the current margin of 1475 is less than the maximum of 1596 ballots that could still be returned.
The deadline for 1097 mail ballots that have yet to be returned is Wednesday at 5 p.m.
The deadline for 499 military ballots that have yet to be returned is Monday.
The 2498 votes as of Tuesday is less than ten percent of the more than 28,000 who voted during last month’s general election. There are nearly 60,000 registered voters.