Staff Reports
ROYALTON — Terry W. Nieman retained his position of superintendent of highways on Tuesday with an unofficial victory over Carson J. Kelley in a hotly contested race that initially reported the challenger as a winner.
The final tab was Nieman with 901 votes and Kelley with 705, out of a total of 1,606 votes cast.
Nieman didn’t believe the early report that Kelley won the election for the two-year term. “I called the board of elections and told them and knew the results were not correct and asked them to look into it. They confirmed what we were telling them and it was corrected.”
According to Nieman, the mistake was made in District 6: Terry’s Corners reported the wrong numbers.
“I feel great,” said Nieman, who has been the highway boss for 10 years. “It’s just doing your job, and people reward you. They vote for you if you’re if doing a good job. They are rewarding me for doing a good job and I’ll continue doing the same job I’ve done for 10 years. They can count on it. I’m a public servant. I work for the people.”
Nieman was the Republican candidate. Kelley, the owner of C&C; Trucking, was on the Democrat, Independence, Conservative and Working Families party lines.
The affiliation advantage belonged to Nieman. The GOP has 2,347 registered voters and there is a combined total of 1,575 Democrat, Independence, Conservative and Working Families voters in the town.
