[11/05/02]Heavy rain did not stop a good voter turnout this morning across Warren County, election officials said.

When the Culkin precinct poll at Sherman Avenue Elementary School opened at the appointed 7 a.m., “It was like somebody opened the floodgates,” said bailiff Tom Wright. Polls were to remain open until 7 tonight.

Locally, county ballots featured the first challenge the 16-year incumbent has faced for Warren County and Youth Court judge, school board races in Districts 3 and District 4 and one special election for constable in the Central District.

Those going to polls here were also deciding whether to return Rep. Bennie Thompson to the U.S. House and Sen. Thad Cochran to the U.S. Senate. The two incumbents were expected to have strong wins.

Voters at Sherman Avenue and at the Plumbers & Pipefitters precinct cast ballots at a rate of about one a minute for at least the first 45 minutes polls were open, a tally showed.

Manager Sid Tucker, a 15-year veteran county election worker, said from Plumbers and Pipefitters he thought the race for the county judgeship would probably be close, requiring a runoff.

“It depends on people’s interest,” he said of the turnout. “When you’ve got that interest, like you have in this race, people will come out, even in the rain.”

Candidates in the judicial race are Vicksburg attorneys Robert C. Arledge, 44; William Bost Jr., 57; incumbent Gerald Hosemann, 50; Warren County Prosecutor Johnny Price, 56; and Clarence A. Whitaker, 59. If one of them doesn’t get more than half the votes, there will be a runoff two weeks from today.

Vicksburg Warren School District board seats are staggered with incumbents in two supervisor districts seeking re-election. Running in District 3 are Betty Tolliver, 52, and incumbent Pearline Williams, 71. The candidates in District 4 are incumbent John W. Carlisle, 54, and Jan Hyland Daigre, 40.

Six candidates David Garland Atwood II, 19; Albert Butler, 35; Roosevelt Holly, 47; James E. Jefferson, 42; Roy Tillman, 45; and Rudolph Walker, 49 are in a special election to fill the last year of a four-year Central District constable term. A runoff is also likely in the constable vote.

Last-minute issues in Republican Clinton B. LeSueur’s challenge of Thompson include the nine-year incumbent Democrat saying there may be voter-roll-maintenance and voting-machine technology problems in Hinds County.

Thousands of Hinds voters’ names could have been removed from voter rolls if they did not return address confirmation cards mailed out earlier this year, he said.

He also said the electronic touch-screen voting machines being used today for the first time in the county could scare away voters, particularly the elderly. Thompson has also accused LeSueur of improper use of campaign funds, a charge LeSueur has denied.

At other Warren County precincts, average to above-average turnout was reported at No. 7 Fire Station, Beechwood, American Legion and City Auditorium.

The number of ballots cast was reported down at St. Aloysius and Cedar Grove.

No. 7 Fire Station poll manager Sue Campbell and bailiff John Smith both predicted low turnout, but said the dozen voters who had cast their ballots by 7:15 a.m. were were about the same number as those voting in fairer-day elections. At Beechwood, 56 votes were cast by 7:36 a.m.

The rain did appear to affect early turnout at the Redwood and Vicksburg Junior High precincts, which appeared lower than usual, those polls’ respective managers, Peggy Blansett and Fred Shields, said.

Elsewhere in Mississippi, incumbent Reps. Ronnie Shows, Democrat, and Chip Pickering, Republican, were in a race to represent the new 3rd Congressional District, merged from the districts they once represented.

Voters are also deciding a constitutional amendment to extend the terms of trial judges to six years. Chancery, circuit and county judges’ terms are now four years.