UPDATE published on Nov. 7, 2025 @ 5:42 p.m.
A single provisional ballot in the race for Jefferson mayor was waiting to be counted.
Heading into Friday, challenger Dawn Maddox held a razor-thin one vote lead over Incumbent Jon Howell, 1,278 to 1,277.
After the single vote was counted, Maddox’s margin of victory increased to two. 1,279 to 1,277.
It was reported on Wednesday that 18 provisional ballots still needed counting, but only one was in the City of Jefferson.
In the state of Georgia, a candidate can request a recount if the margin is less than or equal to a 0.5% difference. Given that Maddox got 50.04% of the vote, Howell will likely call for a recount.
“Contrary to what Mayor Howell stated on Tuesday, we don’t have a city divided because the vote was so close, we have a city that is engaged and that’s a beautiful thing,” Maddox said in a statement on Friday. “This isn’t division, this is democracy in action. Americans gave their lives so that we can have freedom to vote. This was an extraordinary thing to witness.”
Original story published on Nov. 4, 2025 @ 11:58 p.m.
Tuesday night’s Jefferson mayoral election was as close as it could be, as former councilwoman Dawn Maddox edged out incumbent Mayor Jon Howell by a single vote.
Maddox tallied 1,278 votes to Howell’s 1,277 according to the final numbers posted Tuesday night by the Georgia Secretary of State’s Office.
Maddox was challenging for the mayoral seat after resigning her council post earlier in the year amidst a controversy in the Jefferson Police Department. Maddox had expressed concern over the city manager asking the mayor and council to indemnify an officer who had previously been arrested by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation for allegedly improperly showing arrest information to an unauthorized person.
“When I did my own research on that, I could not justify the indemnification,” Maddox said. “Unfortunately, we had already voted on that, and I felt that I owed the people of Jefferson an apology, so I publicly stated that on July 14, and I resigned my seat because I felt like we misused taxpayer dollars.”
Maddox said she wants to use the influence of the mayoral office to better the city.
“Whether that’s with [transportation issues], whether that’s looking into the ongoing issues that we have with lack of oversight at City Hall, holding our city manager accountable for projects where I know that we are spending taxpayer dollars two and sometimes three times, I want to put in the hard work to make sure that when I leave Jefferson, it will be better off than how I found it,” Maddox said in an interview prior to Tuesday’s election.
The post After single ballot count, Maddox hangs on to win by two votes appeared first on AccessWdun.
