The winner of the seventh and final seat for the Chester school board will not be officially declared until April 16, but Lorin Mott has a sizable lead over Logan Roche so far, with 137 write-in votes to 72 write-in votes.
April 16 is the final day the county will accept mailed-in ballots. Those ballots had to be postmarked by Election Day, April 2, in order to be counted.
Meanwhile, six current members of the school board were re-elected on April 2 without a challenge: Debra L. Caraway, Dan Colvis, Charles R. Fricke, Mitchell A. Hammel, Trent C. Vasquez and Thomas Welge.
Member Jamie Eggemeyer did not run for re-election, and no one filed to run for that seat.
However, both Mott and Roche filed as write-in candidates.
In an unusual scenario, the entire Chester school board was re-elected at once, instead of the usual situation where half of the board is elected every two years. This happened because voters changed their election system -- deciding to elect school board members "at large" instead of by geography.
To return to the staggered system in future elections, three of the seats will be tabbed as two-year seats and four seats will be 4-year terms.
For six of the seats, this will be decided by an upcoming random drawing. The seat that will go to either Mott or Logan will automatically be one of the two-year terms, Superintendent Brian Pasero said prior to the election.
