Final numbers: Berlin tops Hodge in narrow JCSD race

PINE BELT, Miss. (WDAM) - Most folks had pegged the race for the sheriff’s seat in Jones County to be an interesting tangle between a cluster of candidates with clear-cut bases of support.

And that’s exactly how the results from the recent general election played out.

The final numbers from the Jones County election, released late Wednesday night, had incumbent Joe Berlin holding onto to the office, but only by a couple hundred votes.

The final results had Berlin with 6,656 votes to the 6,401 cast for former sheriff and Berlin predecessor, Alex Hodge.

That’s a margin of 255 votes.

Macon P. Davis finished with 4,921 votes in the final tally, while Kenneth Rogers finished with 2,374 votes.

The final numbers released Wednesday night not only included the votes cast in person on Nov. 7, but all legal absentee and affidavit ballots.

According to the numbers, 1,300 absentee ballots were cast, with another 91 affidavit ballots added to the final mix.

Of Jones County’s 44,347 registered voters, 20,655 voted last week. That means some 46.6 percent of those who could have voted, did.

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