“Early voting has gone very smoothly,” said Saundra Bloom, Howard County Elections Administrator. “When you just have one local race it’s a lot easier. But we haven’t had any problems with the programming for the voting machines or anything else.”

Jimmie Long and Winston Paschal Odom, both Republican candidates for the Precinct 3 seat on the Howard County Commissioners Court, are currently going head to head in a runoff election made necessary by the March 4 political party primaries.

Neither candidate was able to garner the required 50 percent of the vote to avoid a runoff. Long finished ahead of the pack for the party’s nomination with 310 ballots — 39.64 percent of the vote — while Odom finished the night with 197 ballots, accounting for 25.19 percent of the vote.

Vote totals at mid-week had the Republican contest out well ahead of the Democratic runoff, with 116 ballots in the local contest. The Democratic runoff garnered only 39 ballots, for a total of 155 ballots.

The low number of ballots is to be expected, according to Bloom.

“In all, this is the turn out we’ve been expecting all along,” said Bloom. “When you only have one local contest — and only voters in a single precinct can cast a ballot — you don’t expect big numbers.”

The winner of the runoff will have to face Democratic nominee Dick Dubose — who won his party’s nomination unopposed — in the November election.

For voters participating in the Democratic runoff, they will have to choose between Railroad Commission candidates Dale Henry (Austin) and  Mark Thompson (Hamilton).

Bloom said early voting polls will be open on the county courthouse’s third floor between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. and continue through Friday, with late voting set for today and polls open from 8 a.m. until 7 p.m.

Contact Staff Writer Thomas Jenkins at 263-7331 ext. 232 or by e-mail at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it