Election results made official
Published 12:00 am Thursday, November 29, 2007
The results are officially in.
On Monday, the Lawrence County Board of Elections counted all the provisional votes and added them with the poll and absentee votes.
With only 131 votes, the provisionals had negligible effect on the results.
“Nothing changed,” said Eric Bradshaw, the deputy director of the Lawrence County Board of Elections.
A provisional vote is cast when someone votes at a polling booth where they are not registered.
“It can be someone who has moved or has a new name and doesn’t have new identification,” Bradshaw said. The provisional voter has 10 days to show proper ID to the board.
Bradshaw said about 100 provisional votes were kicked out because they weren’t completed, didn’t come to the office to show ID, left out a birth date or they weren’t registered voters.
Three races will get automatic recounts: the Ironton City Council, the Symmes Valley fiscal officer and Symmes Valley Board of Education races. It is an automatic recount when there is a less than 10 percent difference between candidates.
In the unofficial city council race between Chuck O’Leary and Michael Lutz, there was just a four vote difference. O’Leary got 19 provisional and Lutz got 16, leaving O’Leary with 1,517 to Lutz’s 1,510.
In the unofficial results for the Symmes Valley fiscal officer, Linda Carpenter had 67 votes and Patty Belville had 66. Neither got any provisional votes.
In the official results for the Symmes Valley Board of Education, the race for the second open seat had Kim Turner with 713 votes and Kent Wells with 709.
Bradshaw said any candidate could apply for a recount until Monday at 4 p.m.
“Candidates can request until five days after the official count,” Bradshaw said. “But with the holiday, we’re giving them until Monday.”
He added that the recounts are done by hand and if random picks match up, it is run through the machines. If there are a lot to do, workers might be there all day doing the count.
“It is a time consuming process, but at least there is a paper trail,” he said.