This time, it wasn't even close.Six weeks after activist and business owner Bruce Franks Jr. narrowly lost his Democratic primary challenge to incumbent state Rep. Penny Hubbard (D-St. Louis), a court-ordered revote had a markedly different outcome.
Today, Franks walloped her.
With 100 percent of precincts reporting, Franks took 76.12 percent of the vote to Hubbard's 23.88, winning by a margin of more than 1,500 votes.
In the earlier election in August, which a judge threw out after Franks' election challenge revealed serious irregularities with absentee balloting, Hubbard had squeaked by with a 90-vote margin of victory.
One big difference was the number of absentee ballots — there were only one-fifth cast today as in the disputed August 2 election. This time, too, Hubbard beat Franks in the absentee ballots, but by a far smaller margin. He captured 42 percent of absentee votes to her 57.9 percent.
But based on his high margin of victory tonight, Franks could have prevailed over Hubbard even if she'd brought in as many absentee voters as she did August 2.…