<p>A judge has ordered a new election for McIntosh County sheriff, after the two candidates finished just 36 votes apart and election officials admitted that some ballots were cast by ineligible voters.</p><p>County Commissioner Stephen D. Jessup, who had run against incumbent Charles Jones for the position, challenged the results last month because of the close outcome.</p><p>"If the improper ballots had been rejected like they should have been, we would have won the election," Jessup said.</p><p>Senior Superior Court Judge William J. Neville granted Jessup's request for a new election Friday, but said it should not be held until problems at the Board of Registrar's office are cleared up.</p><p>Jones will remain in office beyond Dec. 31, the end of his four-year term, until an official winner is declared in the new election, Neville ruled.</p><p>In his decision, the judge cited problems with a number of absentee ballots, such as writing wrong birth dates and counties of birth, lack of signatures, failing to submit reasons for casting absentee ballots and failing to complete oaths.</p><p>Chief Registrar Jimmy Amerson told the judge the unusually large number of advance and absentee ballots cast _ 2,208 _ overwhelmed his staff, and they did not have time to reject problematic ballots and notify voters so they could get new ones.</p><p>Amerson admitted some human error, but claimed only eight ballots were wrongly cast, including one by a convicted felon, one by an underage voter and several by people who voted twice.</p><p>The election was legal and fair and "the people who wanted to speak their minds, spoke their minds," said Robert B. Turner, who represented Jones and argued against a new election.</p><p>However, Jessup's attorney, Adam S. Poppell III, said the number of ballots with errors far exceeded that 36-vote margin. "This is our chance to do this right," he said.</p><p>Neville did not schedule a date for the new election Friday, saying the Board of Registrars first needed to fix its problems, such as getting more staff to conduct absentee voting, updating changed voter addresses and removing names of the dead from voter lists.</p><p>Another matter is how to pay for the new election in a county that's $1.5 million in debt.</p><p>Jones said he may appeal the decision, but "whatever happens, it'll be awful expensive."</p><p>___</p><p>HASH(0x2862f68)</p>
