The contentious Democratic primary for St. Louis sheriff is over.
St. Louis Sheriff Vernon Betts dropped a lawsuit earlier this week asking for a manual recount in his Democratic primary against Alfred Montgomery. A machine recount found Montgomery defeated Betts by 221 votes.
“From what I was getting from my lawyers and from the election board is that even with us being fairly close we don't think we would have gotten enough votes for the hand count to overcome to win the election,” Betts said in an interview Thursday. “So no point in dragging this out.”
Montgomery didn’t immediately return requests for comment.
Betts was first elected sheriff in 2016, succeeding longtime incumbent Jim Murphy. The primary job of the sheriff’s office is to provide security for the city’s courthouses and to transfer prisoners. The sheriff is also responsible for serving eviction notices and issuing conceal and carry permits.
Montgomery is a former sheriff’s deputy who unsuccessfully ran against Betts in 2020. He’ll face Libertarian Joy Denise Dabney in November. Since St. Louis is overwhelmingly Democratic, he’ll be heavily favored to succeed Betts.
Betts said he plans to campaign for Dabney in the general election.
“The Libertarian Party seems to be pretty excited about me helping Miss Dabney,” he said.
Betts, 71, said that he will be fine financially since he already draws a pension from AmerenUE — and will also get a pension from the city. But he’s promising to stay involved in St. Louis politics and added that he’s not necessarily swearing off running for something in the future.
“I'm not going to bow out of politics,” he said.
