LAURINBURG — With nearly two-thirds of the vote, veteran Laurinburg City Council member Curtis Leak emerged from Tuesday’s election with another term representing District 1 to look forward to.
A retired teacher, Leak has served for more than 20 years on council and received 592 votes to return him there. His challenger, Darlene Alston, received 318.
Leak entered Election Day with a commanding lead from one-stop, with 384 votes to Alston’s 200. He also led the voting in all four precincts where District 1 residents voted.
Leak campaigned on his experience on city council and commitment to improving public safety, providing high-quality services to city residents, and creating a viable plan for future growth.
Neither candidate was present when results were announced at the Scotland County Courthouse on Tuesday night.
Election Day did not get off without a hitch Tuesday morning, as four precincts — the county annex, Washington Park Learning Center, Scotland Place, and National Guard Armory —got off to a delayed start due to a computer glitch, according to Elections Director Dell Parker.
“Our laptops are really old and somehow our laptops had changed the date back to Nov. 1,” she said. “With the state program, you can only operate it on Election Day, so I had to go out and change the date, change the time, do a new upload to the state board, which I did and got all of the precincts back open.”
As a result, Parker made an executive decision to extend the voting period at the affected precincts by 30 minutes until 8 p.m.
“It had nothing to do with any complaints that we received, it had nothing to do with any candidates, it was where this office wanted to do what was correct for our voters,” she said.
Mary Katherine Murphy can be reached at 910-506-3169.