Henry “Glad to Have Prevailed;” Yarbro Calls for Clarity

A longstanding state senator is declaring victory in the narrow race to hold onto his seat, but his young challenger isn’t calling it quits just yet. The voting tallies swung back and forth between incumbent Nashville Senator Doug Henry, and his opponent in the Democratic primary, Jeff Yarbro.

Election commission officials say the machine used to count absentee ballots broke down, so poll workers tallied the results by hand.

The newest count puts Henry ahead by 13 votes, but that’s still unofficial.

Lionel Barrett, an advisor at the election commission, says the result won’t be certified for another two weeks. At that point, Barrett says whether there’s a recount will be up to the Democratic party.

“If Mr. Yarbro’s folks, if they ask for a recount, then I would anticipate that due to the closeness of the race that probably the Democratic executive committee would ask us to do the recount, which we would certainly do.”

But Democratic Chair Chip Forrester says he hasn’t yet gotten a formal request from Yarbro, and doesn’t want to speculate on how the contest could play out.

A statement from Yarbro’s campaign says a recount “appears to be in order.”

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