Politics & Government

Barnett Wins Orion Township Supervisor; Plus Results for Treasurer, Trustees

Chris Barnett and Mark Thurber were the early winners in the primary for Orion Township supervisor and treasurer, according to the unofficial results Tuesday night.

Chris Barnett won over JoAnn Van Tassel in the Republican primary for Orion Township Supervisor, according to the unofficial results from the Oakland County Clerk Tuesday ngiht.

With no Democratic challenger for the November general election, that makes Barnett the presumptive winner, having garnered about 65 percent of the votes cast in the primary.

For Orion Township Treasurer, Mark Thurber earned about 54 percent of the vote over Alice Young.

Find out what's happening in Oakland Township-Lake Orionwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Besides the race for Supervisor and Treasurer, the four Republican candidates for Trustee all were within 100 votes of each other, each taking roughly 25 percent of the vote. All four—Michael Flood Jr., Neal Porter, John Steimel, and Donni Steele—will make it on the November ballot. 

Incument clerk Penny Shults also easily won her unopposed race.

Find out what's happening in Oakland Township-Lake Orionwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Earlier in the day, Joseph Patrick Belanger, the co-chairperson of the first precinct, said there was decent turnout in his precinct with 283 people having voted as of about 7:00 p.m., not counting absentee ballots. He said that turnout doubled from 20 people per hour, to 40 people per hour after 5:00 p.m.

Still Belanger, who has now completed his fourth election as a precinct chairperson, said turnout was good, but less than in years past.

“This is relatively slow,” he said. “I think we were anticipating a bigger crowd today than we got, but I’m sure that November will be a very busy day.”


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