Fayette County Commission incumbent Linda Wells nearly squeaked out a victory despite facing two challengers in last week’s primary elections. She fell 194 votes short of winning outright without a runoff in a three-way race where 11,445 votes were cast.

Wells will face challenger Jack Smith in the runoff election Tuesday, Aug. 8.

Wells carried 34 of the 37 precincts, including absentees, 16 of them by 50 percent or more, giving Smith a tough road to face in the campaign’s weeks ahead.

Smith was the outright winner in only two precincts: Woolsey and Fayetteville West. Third-place finisher Sam Chapman carried only Brooks, but beat or tied Smith in nine other voting places.

Democratic candidate Rod Mack, who will face the winner of the Wells-Smith runoff, also had a strong showing with 3,483 votes despite the fact that he ran unopposed on the Democratic ticket.

The races for the Post 4 and 5 seats on the Fayette County Commission drew much more attention from voters than the races for the Post 4 and 5 seats on the Fayette County Board of Education in last week’s primary election.

More than 11,000 voted in the races for both county commission seats, but fewer than 9,000 voted for the Post 5 school board seat, and fewer than 6,400 voted for the Post 4 school board seat.

All these seats are at-large and thus any registered voter in the county can vote in all the races, regardless of which area of the county the voter lives in.

Eric Maxwell won the Post 5 seat over incumbent Greg Dunn by 256 votes in a very close race. As tallying began, Dunn built a slight and later growing lead, but it evaporated by the time 31 of 36 precincts had been counted, when Maxwell went ahead by one vote. All told, 11,422 votes were cast in that race.

Maxwell carried 19 of 37 precincts, including absentees. He also won five precincts with more than 60 percent of the vote, while Dunn won two precincts with more than 60 percent in returns.

In the school board races, incumbent Lee Wright held off challenger Faith Hardnett 5,311 to 3,614 to keep his Post 5 slot. Wright won two-thirds of the votes in nine precincts in a race that was not as close as some had predicted.

In the post 4 race, former school board member Dr. Bob Todd reclaimed a seat on the board, defeating challenger Frank Oakley by a 2 to 1 margin. Todd garnered 4,352 votes to Oakley’s tally of 2,013.

Todd won 23 precincts with at least two-thirds of support from voters. He will assume the seat currently held by Greg Powers, who was disqualified by the Fayette County Elections Board based on evidence that he no longer lives in the geographic district for Post 4. That district only limits who can run for office based on whether or not they live in the district. The entire county can still vote on the Post 4 seat.

There was no Republican challenger in either of the school board races, assuring victory to last week’s winners.

In the race for the state legislature’s 72nd district, Dan Lakly handed a defeat to Bill Bonner by earning almost 65 percent of the vote in the Republican primary. Lakly finished with 2,659 votes while Bonner tallied 2,018.

Lakly will face off against Democrat Kevin Madden of Peachtree City in the November general election.