Michelle Jett currently holds the lead in the race for Champaign County executive.
As of 11:20 p.m. on Tuesday, Jett had nearly 60 percent of the vote, according to unofficial county results. Jett was 2,000 votes ahead of her opponent, Sanford Hess, though the Champaign County Clerk’s office told IPM News there are still thousands of mail-in ballots left to be counted.
Jett is currently the director of administration for the county. She said she is grateful for everyone who braved the cold to vote in local races.
“It really provides us with feedback on what the people want when we can look at the voting and see based on what the candidates were talking about in their platforms, who’s getting the votes. That gives you direction as to what the community wants,” Jett said.
The county executive runs the day-to-day of the county administration.
Jett said she wants to continue current executive Steve Summer’s approach to service for county residents.
She also wants to protect the drinking water in the Mahomet Aquifer. In an IPM News forum, Jett said that means approaching development of any data centers with caution, since they require a lot of energy and water.
Jett said Tuesday that her third top priority is affordable housing.
“We just don’t have enough housing here,” Jett said. “We don’t have enough homes being built and what we have being built isn’t necessarily within a reasonable price range.”
Both Jett and Hess are Democrats running in the primary. Whoever wins will become the executive as no Republicans are vying for the position.
Both candidates said Tuesday evening that they plan to wait for all the mail-in votes to be counted by the county clerk’s office before ceding the election.
“I wouldn’t call it over until it’s called over by the official people,” Hess said.
Hess said he is happy with how he ran his campaign, as it avoided sending out robocalls and texts, noting he feels both of those methods are annoying. He is also pleased with the dialogue on issues between two candidates.
“One of the frustrations for me is that so many of the races on the ballot had only one candidate. And you don’t really get the dialogue that you get when you have two candidates,” Hess said.
Hess said he would be disappointed if he loses, saying he wants to contribute to the county. He said he will continue to support local governments in his job as a consultant, helping them transition to new software, for example.
If Hess wins, one of his top priorities would be to provide multiple proposals for each county board action, so elected policymakers have options and can see the full thinking process behind the measures that staff recommend.