DALTON, Ga. — It took a little while to get the final votes in Tuesday’s Education Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (ESPLOST) special election counted. But when they were finally in, they confirmed that Dalton and Whitfield County voters had approved the measure by a wide margin.

The final tally showed the vote was 2,360 in favor to 765 against (75.52 percent to 24.48 percent).

The Whitfield County elections office had votes from 22 of the county’s 23 precincts in and counted before 8:30 p.m. on Tuesday and they showed the measure winning by about 76 percent to 24 percent.

“Everything went really smoothly until the storms came in,” said Registrar Mary Hammontree.

A brief but intense storm passed through the area around 7:30 p.m., knocking down power lines and breaking trees. Storm damage blocked the sole road out of the Tilton precinct in southern Whitfield County, with poll workers unable to leave with the results from that location.

Hammontree said this is the first time she is aware of anything like that happening.

With less than 40 votes cast in Tilton, that precinct wouldn’t have changed the outcome of the election. But nothing was official until those votes were in and counted.

Workers finally got back to the elections office in the Whitfield County courthouse a little after 10 p.m. and the votes were counted without further incident.

The new five-year ESPLOST will begin on Jan. 1, 2018, and is projected to collect $98 million, with Whitfield County Schools receiving $61 million and Dalton Public Schools $37 million based on each system’s share of enrollment. Whitfield County Schools’ top priorities are replacing North Whitfield Middle School and Valley Point Middle School with two new schools that would be built on the same campuses.

Dalton Public Schools’ top priority is “adding to, renovating, repairing, improving, equipping and furnishing existing school buildings or other buildings or facilities useful or desirable in connection therewith, including, but not limited to Brookwood School, City Park School, Roan School and Dalton High School.”

Dalton Public Schools Superintendent Jim Hawkins said Tuesday he will ask the members of the Dalton Board of Education to vote at their April meeting on an architect’s contract for the school system’s top two priorities, Brookwood and City Park.

“That will be roofs, HVAC (heating, ventilation and air conditioning) and interior renovations in both schools,” Hawkins said.

Though this ESPLOST, which is a continuation of one already in place, won’t begin until Jan. 1, Whitfield County Schools Superintendent Judy Gilreath said Tuesday night that school system officials there have plenty of work to do during the next nine months.

“One thing we have to do is to have a soil study to make sure that the sites (North Whitfield Middle School and Valley Point Middle School) are suitable for building,” she said. “We have no reason to believe they are not. But we will have to do that study. We will also be organizing a committee made up of administrators from the two schools, teachers, parents and students to plan what type of facilities they need. We will spend a good amount of time doing that.”

Gilreath said board members haven’t decided whether the system will work on both schools at the same time or get one underway before starting the other.

Hammontree says it typically costs the county $15,000 to $17,000 to hold a special election. She doesn’t have a final accounting yet, but she says she expects Tuesday’s election will be at the low end of that range. The two school systems will compensate the county for the cost of the election.