Through the early voting and Tuesday, Tangie Reese Johnson captured a few more than 50% of the votes in a three-candidate special election for the District 1 seat on Statesboro City Council left vacant by the resignation last summer of longtime Councilman Phil Boyum.

The city special election was held in conjunction with the general election for federal, state and county offices and – just for City District 1 voters – appeared on the same ballots. Johnson received 1,020 votes, or 50.85% of the total, to 608 votes, or 30.31% for Ken Jackson and 378 votes, or 18.84%, for John Grotheer.

All of the city District 1 voters who waited until Election Day to vote did so at the county’s “Church” Precinct at Statesboro Primitive Baptist Church. Jackson and Johnson, each accompanied by a few supporters, held campaign signs on opposite sides of Zetterower Avenue on Tuesday afternoon. They were within sight of the church parking lot but more than the 150 feet from the door of the voting space, and thus outside the zone where campaigning is prohibited under Georgia law.

By capturing 1,020 of the 2,006 total votes counted in the unofficial election night results, Johnson appeared to avoid a runoff with Jackson by just 17 votes more than the required 50%.

Countywide, 46 ballots had been cast provisionally, such as by voters at the wrong precinct or without ID, and these could still be counted if made whole by 5 p.m. Friday, according to Election Supervisor Shontay Jones and staff members. But  only six of the provisional ballots appeared to be from the Church Precinct where they might include the city special election.

Tangie Reese Johnson, records and compliance coordinator for human resources at Georgia Southern University,  serves on the Statesboro Housing Authority board.Before going to work for the university’s Office of Human Resources, she was a police officer. Johnson served with the Dublin, Georgia, Police Department from July 2010 to November 2012 and with the Georgia Southern University Police from November 2012 to April 2017. She has been a Statesboro resident since 2017.

Like all Statesboro city elections, the special election was nonpartisan.