With 100 percent of precincts reporting, incumbent Monroe County Assessor Judy Sharp, a Democrat, defeated challenger Ellis with 55.78 percent of the vote. As of 11:53 p.m. Tuesday night, Sharp had 12,286 votes to Ellis’ 9,738.
“I’m kind of shell-shocked, I’m not going to lie to you,” Ellis said of the election results. “But like I said, the numbers are the numbers.”
The Monroe County assessor’s race has been largely contested and gained considerable momentum throughout the campaign season.
The first bit of controversy came when Ellis was told he was not eligible to run after the primary because he had yet to acquire a level three assessment ?certification.
At the time, Assessor Sharp also did not have the level three certification, not needing it after being grandfathered in to the new requirement. Both Sharp and Ellis ended up obtaining their respective level three certifications.
“I’m glad we have a level three assessor now, no matter which person is chosen,” Ellis said.
Ellis said even though he lost, he said he believes he ran a successful campaign.
“One thing I know I can take comfort in is that I moved the conversation forward for the level of training,” Ellis said.
Ellis said he was disappointed with early voting numbers and that even though he was not ready to concede, he was willing to accept the fate of defeat.
“If I lost that’s fine,” Ellis said. “Of course I thought the race would have been closer. This was a race that people got very excited about, and I had a lot of cross-party support.”
The next bit of controversy came a week before the election on Oct. 28, when Ellis accused Sharp of not disclosing a conflict of interest, which is a felony in Indiana. Sharp refuted the claim calling it, “totally ?ridiculous.”
In a press conference Ellis called for a special prosecutor to investigate the matter. Now that the campaign is done, Ellis said he no longer intends to push the issue any further.
“If I lead it, it almost seems like sour grapes,” Ellis said of pursuing his accusations against Sharp.
Ellis said he still encourages the issues to be looked into, though be would not be spearheading any efforts.
“He’s been an excellent candidate,” said Steve Hogan, chair of the Monroe County Republican Party. “He has worked as hard as any candidate that we got, and that I think that his name is definitely out there.”
Elsewhere, at the Monroe County Democrat Office Tuesday night, incumbent Sharp addressed the crowd wearing her bright pink campaign sweatshirt.
“It’s about all the people here,” she said. “Thank you for your support and all the work you did during this election.”
