Rednour Beats Alongi by 16 Votes

</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[Du Quoin mayoral opponent Guy Alongi was ahead by 40 votes in the final minutes of Tuesday's election,but the one-time city finance commissioner knew that absentee ballots would beat him when the final precinct was posted.

And, it did.

Mayor John Rednour, 76, who has served this city for 22 years, defeated Alongi by 16 votes 854-838. It was the slimmest of margins 50.47 percent to 49.53 percent. Rednour and Alongi both waited for the returns at city hall after polls closed at 7 p.m. The outcome was part of a local election that saw a 38.44 percent voter turnout. A total of 1,713 ballots were cast from among the 4,456 registered voters in Du Quoin. Alongi hit a home run during early voting, garnering much of that vote. But, Rednour & Company know the science of voting and turned out legions of absentee voters as their insurance policy in this election.

Alongi said he will not ask for a recount, but there is an interesting twist to this ending. There are still 21 absentee ballots out in the Du Quoin race that had not yet hit the door of Perry County Clerk Kevin Kern by Tuesday. For any of those ballots to count, they would have had to have been post-marked by Monday,April 4.Kern said typically, only about 25 percent of outstanding ballots after the election are properly post-marked and get counted--not enough to make a difference in this outcome.

Alongi and Rednour watched the returns together as they came into city hall."I went over and shook his hand and told him if I can help in any way,I will." He added. "John's family and mine go back a long way.I ran a good race. In the end,I may be a winner because I got their attention. It was a clean race.I never said one negative thing. Neither did John.I still hope the next council will consider a youth advisory board," he said. "I have a lot of respect for John Rednour. He has done a lot for our community."

Mayor Rednour commented this morning that it was the tough decisions that made the election so close. "We had to raise taxes and any time you have to chose one person out of 70 applicants for a job people are going to be mad at you. I voted for it and the buck stops with me. " Rednour said he holds true to the belief Du Quoin is a great community and said he looks forward to working with the council.

Newcomers Josh Downs and Yvonne Spencer join incumbents Kathy West and Rex Duncan on the council. Incumbent Linda Fronek was not re-elected. Street commissioner Kathy West had 1159 votes; Josh Downs 1112 votes; Rex Duncan 1065 votes; and Yvonne Spencer 938 votes. Downs was openly a Rednour supporter. Spencer would not comment before the election, but her father, the late Joe Morris, was a democrat and her mother is a friend of the Rednour family.