Voters await results of Jefferson sheriff race

The wait begins in Jefferson County as the current sheriff is going against a write-in candidate.

Sheriff Blair Olsen has been in office for six terms and on Nov. 6 is running for his seventh term.

He is going against Ryan Brown, former Rigby mayor. Former candidate Jeff Poole asked Brown to run after he lost by a small margin in the primary race.

However, it was too late for Brown to get his name on the ballot. Therefore, he is running as a write-in.

Brown says a lot of people were shaken up when they found out the sheriff had given his wife an emergency cell phone paid for by the county. The county commissioners audited the sheriff’s office and approved of what they found.

He added Olsen is a good leader, but it is time for a change.

Until this year, Olsen hasn’t had an opponent in 20 years. He said it is a good thing to have someone to run against.

We will have results on our website at http://goo.gl/ce3b1. As of 9:30 p.m. Tuesday, the clerk’s office was still counting absentee ballots and had not yet gotten to the other ballots.

“It’s going to be a long night,” Emily Kramer of the clerk’s office wrote in an email.