This is an edited version of the original story.
BRANDY STATION — Low voter turnout — and an afternoon earthquake — marked Tuesday’s otherwise low-key primary election in Culpeper.
Just 6 percent of eligible county voters cast ballots for candidates Kevin Kelley or Michael Webert in the Republican Primary for 18th District in the Virginia House of Delegates.
Culpeper voters narrowly selected Webert with 52 percent of the vote. He earned 272 votes in Culpeper to Kelley’s 250.
District-wide, Webert, of Marshall in Fauquier County, won the primary with 2,007 votes.
Kelley, of Warrenton, got 1,552 votes. He said he would not run as an independent.
Webert will run against Democrat Bob Zwick, of Marshall, in the Nov. election.
Up at the firehouse in Brandy Station, chief election officer George Brobst reported 4 percent voter turnout at 5 p.m., two hours before the polls closed. A single voter wandered in after a while. The main story here, like elsewhere around Culpeper, was the quake.
“A couple trophies fell down,” Brobst said, pointing to a line of fire department awards on a shelf near the ceiling. “The building rumbled and shook.”
At first, they thought it was a train passing or a plane, he said. One female voter was in the firehouse at the time.
“She was happy to be voting while the earthquake was going on,” Brobst said.
The newly drawn 18th District includes Culpeper County’s four northernmost voting precincts —Brandy Station, Eggbornsville, Jeffersonton and Rixeyville — as well as a tiny part of East Fairfax in town.
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