Early voting in December election to begin Nov. 24th

Early voting begins Saturday, November 24, and runs through Saturday, December 1, for the runoff elections in Evangeline Parish for chief of police in Mamou and for secretary of state.
Incumbent Chief of Police Brent Zackery is going up against challenger Charles Perdices in the runoff election set for Saturday, December 8. In the election held earlier this month, Chief Zackery barely missed winning the election outright as he came in under the 51 percent threshold with 49.61 percent of the vote. Perdices was in second place after the votes were tallied with 27 percent. Others running for the position were Michael Thomas with 19 percent and Michael “Gorilla” Fruge with four percent.
Turnout for the November 6 election was 52.4 percent and there was a total of 1,151 votes cast.
In the secretary of state race, Evangeline Parish resident and incumbent Kyle Ardoin (R) is pitted against challenger Gwen Collins-Greenup (D) after both candidates received 20 percent of the vote in the first election.
In Evangeline Parish, Ardoin led all candidates with 30 percent of the vote, and Collins-Greenup received 13 percent with Turkey Creek Mayor Heather Cloud coming in second with 29 percent.
Having Collins-Greenup in the runoff is a surprise for most political pundits in the state because she had little to no money in her war chest and did not have the backing of her party. However, the pundits agree she benefitted from a higher than expected turnout and from being listed as the first democrat on the ballot.
“I’m used to taking challenges and making the best of them,” she said. “It actually makes me feel great, to be looked at as the underdog, considering I come from a small rural community and I was able to work my way up to the big city of Baton Rouge.”
She added, “Because I was making face-to-face contact, I felt like the voters would give me back what I was putting into our state. I felt like I could pull it off just by getting the turnout up.”
Ardoin, after the election, posted on social media, “I hope to earn your trust and support in the runoff. I’m proud of the positive campaign we ran, and I’m proud of the job our office is doing. This race is FAR from over!”
The eventual winner of the secretary of state election will finish out the term of Tom Schedler and will run for re-election next year with the other state offices. Ardoin was appointed to fill the term earlier this year.