LAWTON, Okla. (KSWO) – A runoff election between Republican candidates for Comanche County Sheriff will take place later this month.
Michael Merritt and Andy Moon want to see their names on the ballot in November. But before that happens, they must win the runoff election on August 27. Merritt said the preparations for that have been like nothing else.
“Being on the campaign trail and then having to watch out for everything, going around and maintaining the signs, people taking your signs away and having to put them back up after every storm,” Merritt said.
He said that if he was elected, he would look at the budget.
“We want to continue doing what we’ve been doing, but not necessarily the way we’ve been doing it,” Merritt said. “We want to upgrade and move into the electronic age where we have our computers and can do our reports on the ground without having to spend so much time printing out papers and sending them back and forth.”
Merritt said his experience as a former firefighter, emergency manager and now with the Comanche County Sheriff’s Department is, in his opinion, the best reason he would be on the ballot in November.
“I have a lot of stuff in what I call my toolbox as far as events, disasters and calamities that I’ve been involved in, whether it’s just law enforcement, firefighters, emergency response, natural disasters – anything of that nature – I’ve been involved in it,” Merritt said. “So I’ve been training for this type of thing since I started my career in 1988.”
Moon accepted the additional election calmly.
“Preparing for this was pretty easy,” Moon said. “We talked to people in the community and found out what they were concerned about – what their concerns were. Every area of the county has different concerns – but some are similar. Of course, drug and property crimes are at the top of the list, but in other communities there are other things that need to be looked at more closely.”
If elected, he wants to improve things.
“It’s not that things are broken, but I believe that we can always get better in any industry, and law enforcement is one of those industries,” Moon said. “Technology is changing, equipment and tools to solve cases are changing, and even the criminal is changing.”
Moon said he has 25 years of experience in federal and local law enforcement serving the citizens of Comanche County and is the best candidate because of his knowledge, training and experience.
“I have multiple law enforcement agencies behind me, including the Lawton Police Department, the Fraternal Order of Police, the Police Chief’s Association, the sheriffs of neighboring counties, the District Attorney’s Office, and the list goes on,” Moon said. “Working on cases like this over the last 25 years has created this strong relationship with these agencies.”
You can vote for either candidate on Election Day, August 27, or when early voting begins on August 22.
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