Voters Flock To Polls To Cast Ballots In Competitive Concord City Council, Board Of Education Races

CONCORD, NH ? A steady stream of voters flowed into Concord?s 10 polling locations on Tuesday, casting ballots for mayor, at-large and ward city council seats, and three SAU 8 ?Zone? board of education seats.

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While turnout was not expected to be as high as 2023, when 28 percent of the city cast ballots in many competitive races, turnout was expected to be higher than the normal 10 to 15 percent for most municipal races in Concord.

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In the first returns, Mark Davie easily won the open Ward 4 seat against Elijah Wilson and Jeffrey Garrett Tynes.

In Ward 5, incumbent Stacey Brown easily bested challenger Alex Dellas by a four-to-one margin.

In the open Ward 6 seat, Aislinn Kalob beat Brenna Kehew Sculley, 293-226.

In two other rematches, the incumbents won: Ali Sekou fended off another challenge by Jonathan Cate, 336-187, while Kris Schultz also fended off a challenge by Andrew Georgevits, 342-239.

After all the returns were counted, Byron Champlin, the incumbent mayor, won by about 62 percent in a second matchup with Kate West. Champlin won every ward but Ward 6, which West won by four votes.

In the at-large race, incumbents Amanda Grady Sexton topped the ticket with more than 4,000 votes while Fred Keached eeked out a second-place finish by 46 votes over Fisto Ndayishimiye. Robert Washburn placed fourth and Jeanne Chase came in fifth.

In the Zone B board of education race, incumbent Cara Meeker won a second term against Jeff Wells by about 400 votes. Wells had a better turnout in Ward 7 but was swamped in Ward 5 by hundreds of votes.

Full results were unavailable for the Zone C race, but Alex Dubois held a 1,200-plus vote lead against Aaron Thompson, who attempted a write-in campaign for the seat after being removed from the ballot due to a registration snafu. About 300 votes appear to be under votes or write-in votes for Thompson.

At most of the polls, some candidates said it was slow going early on. But at some polling locations, like Ward 5 and Ward 10, historically the two busiest wards in Concord, the pace picked up as the day wore on, and the sun began to set. Around 1 p.m., Ward 5 had about 650 voters, close to 19 percent, while Ward 10 had 985, or about 28 percent, at 5:30 p.m. Ward 6, the city?s most transient ward, had about 276 votes at 1:30 p.m., or about 11 percent. Turnout was buoyed by Kalob and Sculley, who ran competitive efforts for the open seat. Both officials and candidates hoped to double the turnout in Ward 6 by the end of the day.

Ward 9, which had a hotly contested ward seat, had 235 votes just after 10:30 a.m., or about 9 percent. Over at Ward 8, about a half hour later, 236 voters, also about 9 percent, had cast ballots.

Ward 4 also had an open seat with three candidates running. At around 12:15 p.m., 308 people had voted, or about 11 percent.

Several wards did not have competitive races.

Ward 7, one ward without a contested ward seat, had around 16 percent turnout at noon, 506 votes.

In Ward 2, around 4 p.m., more than 12 percent had cast ballots, 319 people.

In Penacook, Ward 1 did not have a competitive city council ward race. But by 4:30 p.m., 377 people had voted, about 13 percent.

Ward 3 also did not have a competitive ward city council race. At 5 p.m., 296 people had voted, about 19 percent.

The voter turnout percentage was not available at publication time, but was expected later on Tuesday.

Voters also had three ballot questions to consider.

A school district ballot question, approval of the sale of the former Eastman Elementary School property, was easily approved by voters by a nearly four-to-one margin. Voters also approved social districts within the city by a few hundred votes and approved a ban on Keno by more than 1,300 votes.

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