Hensley retains Marion City Council seat in Tuesday vote

Low turnout marks last undecided race of 2024 election season

By Ralph Hardin

news@theeveningtimes.com

There’s little doubt that 2024 has been a long election cycle, but whether your choices won or lost, at least it’s over – finally.

On Tuesday, along with a handful of other races around the state of Arkansas, the Crittenden County Election Commission held one last round of voting leftover from the Nov.

5 General Election.

There was just one race remains to be settled, and the commission invited voters in Marion to make one last trip to the polls to decided it.

To be settled in the contest was the Marion City Council Ward 1, Position 1 race, where incumbent city councilwoman Kelsey Hensley will faced Gene Hardin after no candidate secured a majority of votes (50%-plus-one) in the three-way race during the Nov. 5 vote.

On Election Night, Hensley received 2,281 votes (46 percent) to Hardin’s 1,344 (28 percent) votes.

Austin Cates, who was also in the race, was eliminated from the runoff after garnering 1,284 votes (26%), necessitating a runoff. The runoff, as is usually the case, saw very low turnout, with just 425 votes cast between early, absentee and election day voting, about an 88% drop-off from the Nov. 5 voting.

In the runoff, Hensley outpolled Hardin by a 316 to 109 vote margin to retain her seat on the council.

The Election Commission is expected to certify the runoff numbers at noon on Monday.

There are four provisional ballots that will be reviewed prior to certification but those four votes would not have any significant impact on the result.

The runoff puts to an end the 2024 election cycle. The 2025 election schedule is expected tobe a light one with olny the annual school board elections currently on the calendar.

HENSLEY

HARDIN