Year in Review: Recounts and tight outcome during Anderson mayoral election

Dec. 30—ANDERSON — In what became the most heated contested election campaign in Anderson's history, Democrat Thomas Broderick Jr. won a third term.

The mayoral campaign saw six candidates from the Democratic and Republican parties contend for the respective nominations in the May primary.

A losing candidate in each primary election filed for a recount of the May ballots.

Broderick initially defeated Rodney Chamberlain by 32 votes in the Democratic Party primary with Tony Watters finishing a distant third.

Chamberlain filed for a recount which determined that he ended up losing by 41 votes to Broderick.

Republicans Jon Bell, Rob Jozwiak and Carolyn Miller sought the mayoral nomination in the primary election.

The results in the GOP primary were even closer than for the Democrat Party nomination.

Bell defeated Jozwiak by four votes with Miller finishing 13 ballots behind Bell.

Jozwiak requested a recount which showed that Bell won by three votes.

Turnout in the primary election was approximately 38% with 6,381 ballots cast in the mayoral primary.

The general election campaign saw Chamberlain and Democrat Rebecca Crumes, president of the Anderson City Council, supporting the candidacy of Bell.

Broderick had a tremendous monetary advantage over Bell, who relied heavily on social media to get his campaign message to voters.

Only 23.5% of the voters cast ballots in the November election with Broderick entering the day with a lead based on absentee ballots that were cast.

Broderick became only the second mayor in Anderson's history to win a third term in office by defeating Bell by a razor thin margin of 198 votes.

Independent candidate John Dyer received 267 votes and Libertarian Douglas McNaughton Sr. tallied a total of 93 votes.

Only 8,370 ballots were cast in the November mayoral contest.

"I thought there would be about 11,000 ballots cast," Broderick said. "Obviously, our strong absentee ballot and getting people to vote early was a factor."

Broderick noted that voters elected new people to the city council.

"The public wanted to see a change in the council," he said. "We almost got caught up in that."

Bell received no financial support from the Indiana Republican Party or the Madison County Republican Party in his bid to unseat Broderick.

"I thought we were going to win," he said on election day. "We campaigned on what we believed the community wanted. There is a lot of apathy in Anderson. People have to realize that change can happen."

Follow Ken de la Bastide on Twitter @KendelaBastide, or call 765-640-4863.