CNHI News Service

DANVILLE, Ill. — The margin couldn’t possibly be any closer in the Vermilion County clerk’s race.

With more than 22,000 votes cast, final election results revealed Tuesday that incumbent Democrat Lynn Foster defeated Republican challenger Dennis Miller by one vote. The vote totals: 11,182 cast for Foster and 11,181 for Miller.

“The first thing that comes to everybody’s mind is that one vote counts,” Foster said. “Every vote matters.”

Final election results included write-ins, late-arriving absentees and provisional ballots that were not counted in the Nov. 2 unofficial election results.

“I’m almost breathless to tell the truth,” Foster said, who has served two decades as county clerk.

Foster said it has been a very long couple of weeks waiting for the final results to come in, both on her and on her staff.

Miller, a first-time challenger, was positive Tuesday despite the outcome, proud of what he and his campaign team had accomplished.

“I feel great actually,” Miller said. “Obviously, we want a win. We want to get the ‘W.’ We couldn’t have gone to one more dinner event or knocked on another door, and we were one vote down from a 20-year incumbent.”

Miller said he has five days from the official canvas to decide whether to initiate a discovery recount.

“It’s not over yet,” Miller said. “It’s an ongoing process that doesn’t have a clear-cut conclusion.”

Information for this story was provided by the Commercial-News in Danville, Ill.