Partial recount planned for county votes
By Steve Herring
Published in News on November 11, 2014 1:46 PM
The Wayne County Board of Elections will hold a discretionary vote recount Thursday of Precinct 4 (Pikeville Fire Station) and Precinct 29 (Wayne County Public Library) and the Mount Olive one-stop site to complete the canvass of last week's midterm election.
The public meeting will start at 2 p.m. at the Board of Elections office at 209 S. William St.
The recount was called for after apparent differences were found between the number of ballots cast and the number that showed up on the tally sheets.
The number in question is small, and it is not unusual to have a small difference crop up, said Beverly York, assistant director of the Board of Elections.
Mrs. York said she could not recall the number offhand, but that she thought it was six or fewer.
The differences were discovered through the normal auditing procedure the elections board goes through between the end of the election and the vote canvass, she said.
The recount was not asked for by any candidate, Mrs. York said. A discretionary vote recount can be called for by a board of elections in such cases, she said.
The canvass to finalize the vote will take place Friday at 11 a.m. at the Board of Elections office.
Neither those few numbers nor the provisional and supplemental absentee ballots received are expected to change the outcome of any of last Tuesday's results, Mrs. York said.
The board met Monday to consider provisional and supplemental absentee ballots.
Of the 183 provisional ballots, only 49 were deemed eligible to be counted. The office also received 51 supplemental absentee ballots.
Provisional ballots are issued when someone's registration eligibility cannot immediately be determined. They are allowed to vote, but the person's eligibility is verified before the ballot is counted.
Supplemental absentee ballots are the properly executed absentees received in person on Election Day or postmarked by 5 p.m. on Election Day and received by the Board of Elections no later than the Friday following the election.
The closest vote last Tuesday was in Pikeville where voters defeated a beer referendum by just two votes -- 117 to 115.
The next closest is the 228 votes separating the two candidates in the Wayne County District 4 Board of Education race.
Newcomer Jennifer Strickland captured 2,723 votes (51.84 percent) to defeat longtime incumbent John Grantham who had 2,505 votes (47.69 percent).