Copperas Cove headed for runoff election for city council Place 6, incumbent out of the race

By LYNETTE SOWELL

Cove Leader-Press

A four-way race for Copperas Cove city council Place 6 has been trimmed to two candidates as of tonight.

With the final unofficial results in from Coryell County Election Administrator Justin Carothers shortly before 9 p.m., it shows that candidates Terri Deans and Vonya Hart emerged as the top two vote-getters.

Deans received 3,182, or 33.23 percent of the votes, with fellow candidate Vonya Hart receiving 2,211 votes, or 23.09 percent. Incumbent Marc Payne received 2,097 votes, or 21.90 percent, with the fourth candidate, Gary Kent, receiving 2,086 votes, or 21.78 percent.

With no candidate receiving more than 50 percent of the votes, Deans and Hart will now go into a runoff election. A runoff election must be called by the Copperas Cove city council after the votes from this election are canvassed.

Payne will remain in office until a winner has been declared of the runoff election.

Place 7 candidate, incumbent Jack Smith, ran unopposed and will begin to serve his first full term in office. Smith was elected in 2019 to fill the remaining year of former councilman Charlie Youngs’ unexpired term. In the 2019 election, Deans ran against Smith.

Proposition A was passed by Copperas Cove voters, by a margin of  8,315 votes, or 74.88 percent, to 2,789 votes, or 25.12 percent.