By By Adrienne McKenzie
The Poarch Band of Creek Tribal Council election was held Saturday and there was a tremendous amount of votes for both absentee and walk-in ballots.
The PCI Tribal Council consists of nine members and there were 21 candidates running for three seats on the Tribal Council. The winners include, Helen M. Hallman, David Gehman and Robert "Robbie" McGhee.
A total of 910 general council members voted for the Tribal election including 325 absentee votes and 585 individuals that actually walked in Saturday to cast their votes.
Tribal government accounting director and alternate on PCI elections board Tim Manning said this year's voting numbers were extremely high compared to every other year.
"This year's election produced record breaking electoral responses in both absentee and walk-in voting," Manning said. "This is one of the years with the highest activity."
According to PCI community relations director Sharon Delmar, this year was also the largest number of candidates running for Tribal Council since she has worked for PCI.
The expiring terms belonged to McGhee, Rodney Exum and Patricia Hodges. Hodges opted to not run for reelection this term.