State's Attorney Race- Absentee Ballots To Be Counted

SNOW HILL -- In a tight race and before absentee ballots were counted, challenger Beau Oglesby had an edge over veteran prosecutor Joel Todd in the race for Worcester County State's Attorney.

Oglesby, who led Todd by 169 votes late Tuesday night, knows what a tight race feels like; he was narrowly defeated by Todd in 2006.

"Four years ago, we were down by one vote on election night and ended up losing by 14," said Oglesby, a Republican. "We're in a much better position now. We're quietly optimistic this will hold but we're unsure how many absentee ballots are outstanding."

According to election officials, 1,500 absentee ballots have been collected and will begin being counted Thursday, although the final results of that count will not be known until Nov. 22. In addition, late Tuesday night ballots from three voting machines -- one each from Districts 1, 2 and 6 -- were being counted manually because of machine errors.

Although Oglesby led in the polls for much of the night, with 14 of 18 precincts reporting, Todd took the lead with 6,669 votes. Just after 11 p.m., however, when all 18 precincts' votes were tallied, Oglesby had regained a slight advantage.

Todd said early in the evening that if he did lose, it would not be because of political mailers from his campaign that the Worcester Republicans called unethical last week. On the mailers, Todd was pictured with several prominent people under a headline that read "Community Leaders Support Joel Todd," although some of them had not endorsed him. Todd's wife and campaign manager, Anita Todd, took the blame for sending the literature.

"If I lose the election, I don't think it has anything to do with that," Todd said as ballots were being counted.

Todd was joined at the polls Tuesday by Lynn Dodenhoff, the mother of Pocomoke City woman Christine Sheddy, whose body was found in Snow Hill earlier this year after she had gone missing. Dodenhoff said Todd was the only man she trusted to prosecute Justin M. Hadel, the man charged in Sheddy's death.

"I believe this is the only man who could prosecute my daughter's murderers," she said. "He's the only man that listened to me and stepped in, got the right people involved in her case."

Other races
In the sheriff's race, current chief deputy for the office Reggie Mason came out significantly ahead of Democratic challenger Bobby Brittingham. Mason received 12,083 votes, while Brittingham took 6,709.

In the Worcester County Commissioners races, incumbents came out ahead, with Commissioner Judy Boggs besting challenger John Bodnar in District 5 with 2,212 votes to his 1,301.

"It was a particularly satisfying win," Boggs said. "The people of Ocean Pines, by an overwhelming vote, demonstrated their confidence in me. I'm delighted by that and I'm looking forward to another four years."

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