Primary election night is behind us in Knox County but the winner of the Democratic race for State’s Attorney remains unclear.
Incumbent John Pepmeyer leads Jeremy Karlin by 67 votes but the Galesburg Election Commission and the County Clerk’s office are still waiting to count mail-in and provisional ballots, a process which could take another two weeks.
Pepmeyer tells WGIL he’s glad he’s in the lead but he’ll have to wait until further information is provided before he has a handle on the situation.
“It was a grueling evening on everyone involved and certainly in the years I’ve lived and voted here I’ve never seen anything like it,” Pepmeyer says.
He says in the meantime he’s conducting his office’s duties as normal and will have to let “let the chips fall where they may”.
Even though a little more than a percentage point separates them, Karlin says it’s too early to be talking about recounts.
However, Karlin tells WGIL that the City of Galesburg numbers not coming in until almost 11 p.m. is something that deserves checking up on.
“With the numbers coming in so late and the reported difficulties they had, that does reduce one’s confidence in the outcome,” Karlin says. “But we’ll be taking a look at that.”
The Knox County Republican party can still mount a candidate for the general election in November, but since they haven’t yet the winner of the Democratic primary would be the presumptive State’s Attorney.
