Antrim Township write-in bid fails

Former supervisor Scott Diffenderfer failed in a last minute attempt to win a seat on the Antrim Township Board of Supervisors through a write-in campaign. The write-in votes were posted at four precincts once poll workers manually tallied them after the polls closed at 8 p.m. The information was not visibly posted at the State Line Ruritan Club when the workers left.

From the Kauffman Ruritan Club, Shady Grove Community Center, Greencastle Baptist Church and Grace Bible Church voting centers, unofficially, at least 259 voters were not content with all the supervisor candidates on the ballot, and gave Diffenderfer the nod for one of the two open seats. Franklin County’s online results revealed 74 write-in votes for supervisor in State Line. At each precinct, other people also received write-in votes in minimal numbers. There were a total of 351 write-in votes for supervisor noted in the on-line unofficial results.

The county election board will do an official tally to certify the results.

In other races of local interest, Greencastle voters appear to have unseated incumbent councilman H. Duane Kinzer. Three borough council seats were open and there were four candidates on the ballot. The unofficial results show another current councilman, James Farley, as the top vote getter with 407 votes, followed by Frank Webster Jr. with 340 and Wade Burkholder with 333. Kinzer was fourth with 268 votes. There were 12 write-in votes for the office.

Unofficial results indicate that voters retained one incumbent Greencastle-Antrim School Board member while ousting another. With five seats open the seven candidates on the ballot polled as follows: Tracy Baer 1,335; Eric Holtzman 1,316; Ken Haines 1,205; Melinda Cordell 1,135; Michael Still 1,131; Linda Farley 796; Paul Politis 545. Holtzman and Politis are currently on the board. There were 55 write-in votes.