Jonathan Dicks became the new mayor of Burnettown on Tuesday after defeating Danny Feagin in a special election that surpassed the expectations of election officials.
Of the 353 votes cast, 185 were for Dicks and 165 were for Feagin. Three votes were write-ins.
The 20 percent voter turnout surprised poll workers who expected much less for a special election.
"We were expecting 150 or so, and we're at 220 at 4 p.m. or so," poll worker Adam Davis said Tuesday afternoon.
Neither Dicks nor Feagin could be reached for comment Tuesday.
Both men serve on the Town Council and were the only candidates on the ballot to replace former Mayor C.H. Williams, who died in January after a battle with lung cancer. Williams took office for his first term in January 2006 and was re-elected in 2013. For this special election, all Burnettown precincts were combined into one polling location at the C.H. Williams Municipal Center, which has been renamed in honor of the late mayor. The votes were certified Tuesday evening by the Aiken County Registration and Elections Commission.
"The County Elections Commission certifies theirs because they do not have a board of election," commission chair Kay McIver said.
Teddy Kulmala covers the crime and courts beat for the Aiken Standard and has been with the newspaper since August 2012. He is a native of Williston and majored in communication studies at Clemson University.