Clinton County voters went to the polls during the voting process that ended with live voting on election day Tuesday, November 5, 2024, with more than 66 percent of the county’s registered voters casting ballots.
In one of the most hotly contested issues on the ballot here Tuesday, voters decided that Clinton County will not legalize the sale of alcoholic beverages.
With a heavy push to vote against the sale of alcohol in the media in the past few weeks – with newspaper and radio ads and social media post, the “No” votes narrowly won the issue with 2,409 votes while the “Yes” votes were tallied at 2,309, or some 93 votes shy.
With that “No” decision, Clinton County remains as one of only a few counties in Kentucky’s 120 counties that does not permit the sale of alcohol.
In other races of local interest, James Bray, who is currently serving as interim Albany Mayor, won the race for that office.
Bray defeated former Albany Mayor Lyle Pierce 603 to 272.
By winning Tuesday’s race for Albany Mayor, Bray will serve out a two year term, the remainder of what was left on the original term of Steve Lawson, who resigned that position just about a year after taking office.
Bray had served as interim Albany Mayor after being appointed by the Albany City Council following Lawson’s resignation.
Also up for election were the six seats for Albany City Council.
With nine candidates running for the six seats, it was Randy Speck who earned the most votes in Tuesday’s election with 530.
Renee York finished Tuesday’s election with 510 votes, followed by Reed Sloan with 470, Tim Norris with 458, Jr. Gregory with 431 and James Eric Smith with 363 for the top six vote getters and the next Albany City Council.
Only Smith will be a newcomer to the Albany City Council duties, as the other five seat winners were running as incumbents.
Outside of the top six candidates for Albany City Council were Samuel Rains with 354 votes, Harvey Tucker with 318 and Donnie Flowers with 287 votes.
One other local race was a contested race, that being the election of a member to the Clinton County Board of Education in District 4.
Newcomer to politics Vic Soma earned a seat on the school board by defeating incumbent school board member Gary Norris in that race.
Soma picked up 507 votes to unseat Norris who received 456 votes.
A third candidate, Josh Burchett, ran a write-in campaign in the race for school board member in District 4, picking up 20 votes.
Another school board district will also have a new members seated with Andrew Tallent earning a position on the board in the election.
Tallent filed the necessary papers to run a “write-in” campaign for the school board seat in District 2 after no other candidates filed for the position before the filing deadline.
Currently Ronald Albertson is serving on the school board in that district, but opted to not file for reelection and seek another term.
Tallent received 30 write-in votes in Tuesday’s vote totals.
Two constitutional amendments also appeared on Tuesday’s ballot in Clinton County, as well as across the state of Kentucky.
Amendment 1 dealt with changing the Kentucky constitution in regards to not allowing U.S. citizens to vote in future elections.
Clinton County voters were in favor of the change to clarify the wording in that section of the constitution, with 2,969 voting in favor, while 1,475 voted against the change.
In the second constitutional amendment question, relating to allowing the Kentucky legislative body to give funding to private schools from public taxpayer dollars, Clinton County voters were heavily against that measure, with the No votes totaling 2,983 to 1,629 Yes votes.
Incumbent Republican Congressman James R. Comer was seeking reelection to that seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, and Clinton County voters gave him a heavy nod of approval with 4,201 votes as opposed to his challenger, Democrat Erin Marshall who received 496 votes.
In other unopposed races that appeared on Tuesday’s ballot, Kentucky State Senator Rick Girdler received 3,932 votes, Commonwealth Attorney Jesse Stockton, Jr. received 4,170 votes and Clinton Circuit Court Clerk Jake Staton received 4,338 votes, the most of any candidate that appeared on the ballot here.
Although it may be a few days before a winner in Tuesday’s race for the U.S. President is known, what is known, and was expected, is that Clinton County voters were heavily in favor of sending former President Donald J. Trump back to the White House.
Trump earned 4,276 votes here Tuesday, well ahead of Democrat Vice President Kamala Harris who finished with just 549 votes in Clinton County.
Readers are reminded that vote totals in this article, as well as in the accompanying vote total graphic, are unofficial totals.

Clinton voters headed
to the polls early

Clinton County voters certainly didn’t shy away from the opportunity to go to the polls during the early voting periods.
In regards to the percentage of registered voters here who took advantage of the early voting days, Clinton County was the second highest county in Kentucky, at 41.7 percent, including those who voted by absentee ballot, which would also be considered “early voting.”
According to Clinton County Clerk Nathan Collins, 2,497 local voters took advantage of the early three day voting period held last Thursday, Friday and Saturday, representing about 36 percent of the total numbers of registered voters here.
In addition, Collins noted that 143 voters cast ballots in the courthouse during the six-day absentee period.
Collins also reported that  his office had mailed out 462 paper absentee ballots prior to the election.
Of those, as of Tuesday, 447 of those ballots had been returned to his office, or about 97 percent.

Several citizens of Clinton County stood at the intersection at Advanced Auto last week to voice their opinion on the wet/dry vote. Clinton County will remain dry.

Clinton County Clerk Nathan Collins read results for the 2024 General Election Tuesday night in front of a packed house in the clerk’s office.