ELECTION COLUMN: Happy Election Day to all who celebrate!

Tuesday, May 5 is the first of three election days this year, and while it may be the first of a trilogy, it still seems like a destination at the end of a long journey.

As far as local political coverage in The Post goes, this journey pulled out of the driveway on Sept. 13 of last year when I set up my first campaign announcement interview after the end of the Charlie Kirk vigil at Jackson City Hall with a candidate who was there that night.

Since then, there have been more announcements, petitions pulled, petitions filed, candidates pulled from ballots, some placed back onto the ballot, open letters to the public, letters responding to those open letters, social media posts, early voting and now election day.

There are five contested races in local primaries in Madison County today.

Mayor has three candidates on the Republican ballot - incumbent A.J. Massey, Sam Bryant and Andy Hall.

Both County Commission seats in District 6 on the south end of the county are up for grabs with Brian Wilson and Lance Miller running for Position 1, currently held by longtime Commissioner Jimmy Arnold who isn’t running again. Position 2 is held by Mike Bailey, who was appointed to the seat in February after his uncle, Arthur Johnson, resigned. Riley Ragan is challenging him (Chris Phillips is still on the ballot but announced his campaign suspension in early March). Both of those races are on the Republican ballot.

The County Commission seat held for nearly five decades by Luther Mercer (District 1, Position 1) is in the balance on the Democratic ballot as Mercer’s daughter, Tina, who was appointed to the seat in December, is being challenged by Lonnie Parker.

Also on the Democratic ballot is District 2, Position 2 nomination between Allan Hess and Lauren Pritchard.

District 1 is mainly in East Jackson, and District 2 is in Midtown, so those two races are probably keeping a lot of Democrats in those districts from crossing over if there are any Republican mayoral candidates they’d want to vote for.

Turnout has been low so far with a little more than 5,000 votes being cast in early voting. There were more than 10,000 votes cast in these elections in 2022, so either this year’s turnout will be even lower or poll workers at all 29 precincts across the county need to gear up for a busy day.

Good luck to all candidates, and all 56,000 voters in the county who haven’t voted (61,772 total according to Administrator Lori Lott) are encouraged to exercise your right today because the winners of today’s elections and the local general elections in August will have a greater effect on our lives than any election winners in Nashville or Washington.

Depending on connectability at the election commission this evening, The Post will hopefully be live on social media during voting total announcements this evening for real-time coverage after polls close at 7 p.m.

Brandon Shields is the managing editor of The Jackson Post. Reach him through e-mail at jksnpost@gmail.com. Follow him on X.com @JSEditorBrandon. Follow him on Instagram @EditorBrandon.