UPDATE: Forsyth County Voters Pass SPLOST VII

UPDATE: Comments from Forsyth County Tea Party and Forsyth County Democratic Party, 11/9, 12:42 p.m.

It was a nail-biting finale as the votes were being tallied Tuesday night in Forsyth County's special election on SPLOST VII.

and posted comments from many residents as the votes were being reported and tallied at the Forsyth County Administration Building.

The passed with 6825 votes in favor (52%), and 6321 against (48%), a difference of 504 votes.

The total number includes votes from the county's 25 precincts, the in person voting (advance and early voting) and the ballots by mail received. As of Friday, Nov. 4, the totals were:

• Advance Voting (in person) - 2742
• Ballots by Mail Received - 79 (99 ballots were mailed out)
• Early Voting (in person) - 685

"We still have six provisional ballots that will be counted or not counted, depending if they are eligible on Monday morning," said Barbara Luth, supervisor of .

Luth went on to explain what provisional ballots are.

"Those are people that went to the polls, they either went to the wrong poll and did not have time to get to their own poll or they feel that they did register to vote, and we don't have the registration," she said. "Or in one case, they forgot to bring their ID to a poll and they are required to bring their ID to us to get it counted."

Now that the one-percent sales tax referendum has passed the 

Cumming Patch talked with four of the community members who, in the last few days, wrote a 'letter to the editor,' about Tuesday night's results.

"We're pleased that the citizens of Forsyth are educated enough to vote, because that was our goal to educate people and get them out to vote–so we're very pleased about that," said . "Now we just feel like we can work on the improvements of the infrastructure and public safety that the county deserves and has come to expect."

"I'm pleased personally that it passed, but I'm particularly pleased at the voter turnout–it was a very high turnout for a special election," said Ethan Underwood, chairman of the Forsyth County Republican Party. "Obviously a lot of folks are watching how government dollars are spent."

"There's never been a SPLOST that's been defeated in our county or that's even been really close," . Tea Party is very, very focused on educating people on the issues, getting people active and getting them out to vote, that was always our main purpose and I think we accomplished that. We had almost double the amount of voters show up for this SPLOST that did for the school SPLOST [March 2011 election].

Tea Party is not about this one SPLOST, we are not going away, we are here for the long haul…we want to focus on fiscal responsibility and constitutionally limiting government. Voshall also added, It was interesting to me that the precincts that were more overwhelming in favor of this are the exact same precincts that are getting the dollars spent in them and that are getting all this project money sent to them. And it was pretty much the city and it was pretty much down 141 and around that area in Johns Creek, Laurel Springs area."

"I think in the long run this is going to be very beneficial for the citizens and the county that this has gone through and I'm proud for that, . But we also know that when you have a lot of estimated and approximate budgets for areas we need to be very cognizant that there's not any waste and that things are spent appropriately."

The results of the percentages reflect that this was a very concerned topic that the people were interested enough to vote, but it really should have had a larger voter turnout, especially with all the publicity–that's a little disappointing, but it's here."