VIDALIA, La. &045; Only 31 percent of registered voters participated in Saturday’s alderman elections in Concordia Parish.

Voter turnout was low but not entirely unexpected, Clerk of Courts Clyde Ray Webber said.

&uot;You need a race that everyone votes for, like mayor,&uot; Webber said. &uot;(District alderman elections) doesn’t lend itself to brining a whole lot of people together.&uot;

Saturday’s race was one the parish had never seen before, Webber said. Normally every alderman election coincides with a mayoral race, but because of reapportionment the situation was different.

Terms for the current alderman expired last summer, along with the mayoral terms, but the alderman elections were delayed because neither Ferriday nor Vidalia had received federal approval for new district lines. The new lines were required based on population shifts.

The alderman elected Saturday night, and the ones elected after an April 23 runoff will take office immediately after the Secretary of State commissions them.

They were only elected to serve partial terms, until the next regularly scheduled mayoral election, in 2007.

The 2007 race will get everything back on track and future elections will be aligned, Webber said.

The total number of votes cast Saturday was 2,645. The Vidalia District 3 race drew the most voters with 1,660. The race had three candidates, with three alderman seats open. All three incumbents, Jon Betts, Ricky Knapp and Mo Saunders were re-elected.

In Ferriday, the highest vote getting race was in District C, where incumbent Jerome Harris defeated Gail Pryor with 179 total votes cast.

Ferriday District B will be decided in the April 23 runoff. Marion Terrell and Glenn Henderson advanced to the runoff by garnering more votes than Elijah Banks.

Vidalia District 2 will also be decided in the runoff. Triand &uot;Tron&uot; McCoy will face incumbent Carter Warner. Audrey Gray was eliminated Saturday.

In the other races:

4 Johnnie Brown defeated Patricia Ann Martin for the Ferriday District D seat.

4 Gloria Lloyd defeated Dorothy Johnson and Ruth Gray for the Ferriday District E seat.

4 Vernon Stevens Jr. defeated Jerry Foster for the Vidalia District 2 seat.