After a whirlwind election year, the results are in and Donald Trump has been voted the next president of the United States with Mike Pence as his vice president.
The Republican candidate won the 2016 election with an overall 279 electoral votes, Hillary Clinton with 228. In the 18 precincts in Lafayette County, Trump finished with 54.87 percent of votes as opposed to Clinton’s 39.77 percent.
Workers at the Lafayette County Courthouse gathered ballot results to acquire the final election outcome from the county. It was a busy Tuesday night on The Square in Oxford with a number of Election Day festivities happening including a watch party for the Lafayette County Democrats nearby at the Lyric.
Brent Larson, the co-owner of Cash Saver in Oxford and an Ole Miss business graduate, was voted School Board District one of Lafayette County. He waited with his family and chatted about the election as the final ballots were tallied for his office as well as the presidency.
“ I’m here waiting because I’m running for a position. We are just wanting those results to finally come out,” Larson said.
Larson’s children played in the courtroom while they waited. With their patience wearing after being there for several hours, a game of tag had soon ensued and paper snowballs could be seen being thrown across the room.
All spectators waited for the results in a courtroom on the second floor and the President of the Board of Supervisors, Jeff Busby, returned intermittently to update the group as more ballots were received.
“We will continue to update you all as the numbers keep rolling in and more ballots arrive,” Busby said.
It took four hours from the polls closing for the ballots from all 18 precincts to be counted, and Bush walked up and down the stairs hourly keeping the people informed.
Of the 32,899 registered voters in Lafayette County, only 17,746 of them voted, which equals 53.94 percent. 7,038 of them voted for Clinton and 9,710 for Trump.
Trump won 58 percent of votes in the state of Mississippi to Clinton’s 40 percent. 30 states ended up with a majority of republican votes while 20 states and the District of Columbia finished with a majority of Democratic votes. Republicans also won the US Senate and the House of Representatives on this Election Day.
Polls were opened from 7 a.m. until 7 p.m. and the ballot boxes containing the machine counts, absentee and affidavit votes had started to arrive to the county courthouse around 8 p.m. where employees then filed them to gather the final results.
Junior nursing major Taylor Starling said that she was very surprised at the turn the election results were taking.
“I came to the Square to watch the coverage , and I honestly did not think that Trump stood a chance. None of the pre-election polls predicted this, but I just hope some good and necessary changes can be made in the next four years,” Starling said.
Once all of the ballot boxes, approximately 25 total, arrived from the 18 precincts, the information received from them was then uploaded into equipment at the courthouse, counted and consolidated into final reports. These were then sent to Jackson.
There were approximately 10 workers on the first floor of the courthouse that continued to file ballot information until the last box, which was from District 1, had arrived just shy of 11 p.m. After absentee votes were counted the unofficial election summary results were released.
In the courtroom there was about 15 people waiting for the outcome. There was neither food nor television provided in the courthouse, and many continued to check the progress of the election on their phones.
One of five district supervisors for the county, Election Commissioner Supervisor for District two Max Hipp said, “I think that the Election Day ran very smoothly. There was a very heavy flow of voters early with most of it tapering off later in the day.”
Ashley Thusius