Early voting for school board Area 8 runoff between Leventis and Ray is Thursday and Friday, Nov. 12-13

The Sumter school board Area 8 election is the lone race in Sumter County that will require a runoff, and early voting for that seat will be Thursday and Friday, Nov. 12-13. Those two days for early voting will be at one site, the Sumter County Voter Registration and Elections Office, and office Director Pat Jefferson confirmed all the details last week for school board Area 8 - or District 8 - voters.

The county voter registration office is at 129 E. Liberty St., which was the longtime site of The Item and next to First Baptist Church in downtown Sumter. Office hours are 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., and because the school board race is only local race that will have a Nov. 17 runoff, early voting should be a relatively quick process, Jefferson said.

Area 8 voters can also call the office at (803) 436-2310 and request an absentee, or mail-in, ballot. That request process began Monday, Nov. 9.

All Area 8 voters are eligible to vote in the runoff, whether they voted in the regular election or not, she added.

The runoff is between incumbent Phil Leventis and challenger Sherril Ray. The race had three candidates, and Leventis finished Election Day on Tuesday, Nov. 3, with 47.9% of the vote, and Ray was in second place with 31.9%.

When the Sumter County Legislative Delegation changed the Sumter school board from seven single-member districts to nine in 2022, it also initiated a runoff vote or election when no candidate achieved a threshold requirement of 50% plus one vote on Election Day.

On Nov. 17, all six Area 8 precincts will be open for voters and results will be tallied that night, Jefferson said. Whoever wins will serve a four-year term until 2030 on Sumter School District's Board of Trustees.

To date, Leventis has served a little more than 1.5 years on the board and was elected to the Area 8 seat in a special election in February 2025 after current state Sen. Jeff Zell had to vacate the seat when he won a state Senate race in November 2024.

Area 8 is mostly within the City of Sumter limits to include western and northern portions of the city. Roughly half of the western suburbs in the city are in Area 8. Major roadways include Wilson Hall Road, Loring Mill Road, Patriot Parkway and others.

Incumbent Leventis faces 2 challengers for Sumter school board Area 8 seat