Unanimous vote keeps Gibson on ballot
Brent Gibson, who won the Republican nomination for Knox County sheriff in the May 5 primary election, will remain the party's nominee after the Tennessee Republican State Executive Committee unanimously voted to uphold the election results.
The committee voted to allow the Knox County sheriff's primary results to stand at its Wednesday, June 10 meeting.
With no Democratic nominee currently on the ballot for the August General Election, Gibson is now the Republican nominee and sheriff-elect. Tennessee Republican Party Chairman Scott Golden said the committee's decision is final.
"I'm just real excited that the committee upheld exactly what Knox County voters came out to do," Gibson told TV reporters after the meeting.
"Confidence in our election depends on citizens knowing that their votes matter, their voices are heard and their decisions are respected," Gibson told the committee during the hearing.
Mike Davis, who challenged the May 5 Republican primary results, thanked the committee for considering his appeal.
"I appreciate Tennessee State Republican Party
Chairman Scott Golden and the Republican Party Executive Committee for their time and consideration," Davis said.
"After my more than 30-year career in law enforcement, I was compelled to enter the race for sheriff to continue to serve and protect the people of Knox County," he said. "With the unprecedented indictment of two sheriff candidates days after the election, I received overwhelming feedback from voters who stated that the outcome of the election would have been drastically altered had these indictments surfaced before the election.
"This is why I contested the election on behalf of the Knox County voters who felt disenfranchised," Davis said.
"I respect the committee's decision and wish the new sheriff, Brent Gibson, and the Knox County Sheriff's Office the best going forward," he said.
Golden said the committee's decision largely came down to Gibson's margin of victory.
"The margins were there," he said. "The victory was such that overturning it just really wasn't an option."
Election results showed Gibson received 19,672 votes, or 44.14%, of the more than 44,000 ballots cast. Amburn finished second with 30.16%, followed by Davis with 14.2% and Jones with 11.5%.
The committee considered three possible actions: allow the election results to stand with Gibson as the nominee, award the nomination to another candidate or vacate the election, leaving no Republican nominee on the August ballot.
During deliberations, committee member Tim Hutchison, a former Knox County sheriff, argued against overturning the election.
"Being from Knox County, I've been through a lot of sheriff's elections since the early 1970s," Hutchison said.
"We had four candidates who were well-known," he said. "All of them worked for me at one time. This was one of the smoothest elections I ever saw."
Hutchison said the campaign remained civil and the voting process was orderly.
"Knox County picked someone to be the sheriff, and it was Brent Gibson," he said.
He also noted the indictments were handled by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation and were not known publicly before the election.
"Amburn and J.J. were as floored as anybody when that came out," Hutchison said.
