DECATUR, Ill. (WAND) - The lawyer of Jim Root confirmed with WAND News Friday night that the judge has ruled that Jim Root had the most votes in the 2018 Macon County Sheriff's race. 

Root's lawyer, John Fogarty, confirmed Root won by 16 votes over Antonio Brown. 

Court documents signed by Judge Anna Benjamin read "Petitioner, Jim Root, is hereby declared the winner of the 2018 election of Macon County Sheriff." 

Brown told WAND News on Saturday he plans to appeal the judge’s ruling.

“We are disappointed with the ruling.  We will be filing an appeal hoping for a speedy ruling.  We believe that all early votes that were in the presence of the County Clerk should be counted.  I believe that your vote is your voice and they should count,” Brown said. 

Brown was originally named sheriff in November of 2018 which lead to a 30 month battle over contested votes. Brown currently holds the role of Sheriff until Jim Root is officially sworn in as Macon County Sheriff. No word yet on when Root is planned to be sworn in. 

The judge heard all the arguments and applied the legal precedents she needs to apply to make the decision. Some arguments she agreed with others she did not. 

The two found ballots, however, we not counted in the judge's final decision, according to the lawyer of Jim Root. 

On November 20, 2018, the Macon County Clerk announced Tony "Chubby" Brown as the winner of the 2018 Macon County Sheriff's Race with a one vote win over Republican candidate Jim Root.

In early 2020, both parties agreed to a full hand recount of all the ballots cast in the 2018 General Election. The recount revealed of the total 39,739 ballots cast, Brown tallied 18,982 votes and Root tallied 18,964 votes, but there were 1,337 contested ballots.
 
It wasn't until December 2020, when both parties appeared for trial. The sole issues before the Court was and how to address the remaining contested ballots.
 
Of those contested ballots, 197 of them did not contain election judge signatures. Both Fogary and Scherer agreed mail-in/absentee ballots that weren't initialed should be counted. However, Scherer wrote the Court should count all uninitiated early vote ballots cast in the Macon County Clerk's Office.
 
A major feature in the case, Fogarty wrote was the two "found" ballots cast on Election Day for Petitioner Root in Hickory Point 1 precinct, which were never counted. Root's lawyer claimed the Clerk's failure to count these two ballots made the difference in who declared the winner of the 2018 Macon County Sheriff's Race.
 
Those two "found" ballots were not counted by the judge in her final ruling Friday. 
 
In court, Root's legal team also claimed, there are several Macon County precincts where the number of ballots casts differs from the number of ballot applications for the precincts.