Bower, Drennan received big support in hometowns

The county-wide vote totals for Randy Bower and Tom Drennan were nearly the same out of 3,149 votes, with Bower holding a slight 27-vote edge in the race to be the next Orleans County sheriff.

However, some towns strongly favored Drennan while Bower collected an overwhelming majority in others. Some towns were almost a 50-50 split in the Republican vote.

Here is the voter breakdown in each of the 10 towns:

Source: Orleans County Board of Elections

Bower is a public safety dispatcher who lives just outside the Village of Holley in Murray. His 146-vote lead in Murray was the biggest difference in any of the 10 towns.

However, Drennan was the most dominant in any town with his showing in Kendall, his hometown. Drennan, the chief deputy in the Sheriff’s Office, won 74.3 percent or 168 of the 226 votes in Kendall.

In Murray, Bower won 70.5 percent of the vote. Bower had his second strongest showing in Clarendon, where he won 62.8 percent of the vote.

Both Bower and Drennan are from the eastern end of Orleans County. Drennan dominated Kendall, and Bower had big leads in Murray and Clarendon.

The central towns of Albion, Barre, Gaines and Carlton were all close.

Drennan was stronger than Bower in the west end, mainly due to a big showing in Shelby, where he got 60 percent of the vote. Yates and Ridgeway were almost evenly split.

The county Board of Elections has 233 absentee ballots out in the race and had received 157 by Thursday. The ballots will be counted Tuesday at 9 a.m., although more could come in by a Thursday deadline. The final results need to be certified on Friday, Sept. 18.

If you’re wondering about voter turnout for the Primary, it was 31.4 percent or 3,157 votes out of the 10,037 registered Republicans. That vote total includes eight write-ins.