DECISION 2016: Griggers keeps 17th Circuit DA post

DSC_3885Greg Griggers will return to the post he has held for 13 years after winning the District Attorney’s race for the 17th Judicial Circuit Tuesday.

“We appreciate so much everybody that went and voted, all the people that supported us, everybody that made contributions to the campaign,” Griggers said. “We’re just very proud that we get to continue to serve Sumter, Greene and Marengo counties in the DA’s office.”

The final tally saw Griggers with 6,873 votes (57%) as compared to 5,281 (43%) for Barrown Lankster.

Griggers decisively controlled Marengo County, taking 3,618 votes (61%) over Lankster’s 2,293 votes (39%). Despite winning the county, Griggers did lose four of the 23 boxes as Lankster won the Demopolis Civic Center (307-257), the Demopolis National Guard Armory (293-237), the Magnolia Community Center (130-32) and the Dixon’s Mills Volunteer Fire Department (211-125).

The major swings for Griggers in Marengo County, however, came at Demopolis High School (281-82), Demopolis’s Westside Elementary School (762-97) and in Linden (242-73).

“We were confident based on what we’ve been doing for the last three months,” Griggers said. “We knew we had good support in all three counties but you never know, you never know until people go into the polls and actually vote.”

Griggers, who was appointed to the DA’s post in 2003 after the retirement of Nathan Watkins, won his first election for the office in 2004 when he defeated Lankster, the state’s first black elected district attorney. Griggers took 54 percent of the vote during that 2004 election. Lankster held the District Attorney spot beginning in 1992, when he was elected in a win over Watkins.

Marengo County Board of Education District No. 3

Marengo County saw one other election Tuesday as Rayvell Smith upset incumbent Clifton McKnight 710 votes (59%) to 493 votes (41%) for the District 3 seat. Smith carried three of the four precincts with McKnight taking Rangeline 67-16. Smith drew strong support from Providence (245-176), the Linden Armory (285-179) and the Faunsdale Town Office (151-56). There were 172 undervotes in that primary.

National Races

Hillary Clinton dominated the Marengo County presidential vote Tuesday, taking 3,590 votes (65.8%) while Bernie Sanders finished with 1,092 (20%). Roque De La Fuente got 54 votes while Martin J. O’Malley had 98 votes.

The scarce Marengo County Republican voters favored Donald Trump in the presidential primary. Trump took 580 votes (53.9 percent) while Ted Cruz finished second with 228 votes (21.19 percent). Marco Rubio had 127 votes while Ben Carson got 85 and John Kasich had 26. Mike Huckabee (3), Rick Santorum (1), Rand Paul (2) and Linsdey Graham (1) each got votes within the county. Incumbent United States Senator Richard Shelby got 653 Republican votes (70.75%) Tuesday with Jonathan McConnell’s 234 votes (25.35%) being his closest competition.

In all, 7,587 ballots were cast in Marengo County Tuesday with 6,453 of those coming from the Democratic Primary.