There's another interesting aspect to elections that a lot of people aren't familiar with. It's called the under vote. That's where a voter goes to the polls but for whatever reason chooses not to vote for a particular candidate on their ballot. In this election the under vote in several of the contests could have changed the outcome of that election.

For instance, in the county mayor race, Buddy Bradshaw defeated Estelle Herron by 142 votes. The under vote in that election was 211. 211 people went to the polls but for whatever reason decided not to vote in the mayor's contest.

In the 1st district seat "A", Kelly Brewster won by 14 votes. In fact the spread between the top three candidates was 37 votes. The under vote in that contest was 88.

In the 2nd district race, incumbent Rosemary Quillen lost to Matthew Tinker by 21 votes. The under vote was 31.

In my race for 5th district commission seat "B", I won by 9 votes. The under vote was 38.

So, you can see that it's true every vote DOES count.

On another note, last week I had made the prediction, based on historical data.

"If Loudon County follows the current pattern over the last few election cycles, approximately 60% of the vote was cast early with approximately 40% coming on election day. With 4072 having voted early county wide, that would suggest that 2,700-2,800 should vote on election day." VS.com 5/14

I guess history is pretty accurate. I was off by less than 350.