LOGAN – It’s official. The recount of the Nov. 21 municipal election in Logan is over.
Incumbent council members Mark A. Anderson and Jeanne F. Simmonds as well as newcomer Mike Johnson were confirmed as winners in a city canvass meeting held Dec. 18.
The ballot totals didn’t differ from the unofficial results announced by Logan city Recorder Teresa Harris on Dec. 15, but the final count was about 70 votes more than totals reported in an earlier canvass meeting on Dec. 5 prior to the extended recount.
The primary question in the minds of those who gathered for that canvass meeting was, “Where did those nearly 70 votes come from?”
“There are a number of checks and process reconciliation that occur in an election,” according to former county clerk Jess Bradfield. “In a recount, it is common to have a few ballots be added or contested.
“But dozens of additional ballots being added raises my eyebrows.”
But that’s all part of the recount process, according to state officials.
Because Cache County election officials were placed on administrative leave due to an unrelated election investigation, that recount process was assisted by Shelly Jackson, the state’s deputy director of elections, and other members of Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson’s election staff.
“Before the recount started,” County Executive David Zook explained, “they told me that it was perfectly normal to see the vote count go up during a recount process.”
In that recount process, Anderson’s vote total jumped from 3,449 ballots to 3,467 and Johnson’s ballot count rose from 2,892 to 2,909.
Simmonds’ vote count meanwhile jumped from 2,419 ballots to 2,427, while candidates Joe Needham increased from 2,400 ballots to 2411 and Katie Lee-Koven’s ballot count increased from 2,388 to 2,403.
“I would think that number (a total of 69 votes added to those five candidates’ totals) … probably warrants an audit or at least a review of why the discrepancy occurred and why they weren’t counted the first time,” Bradfield observed from the sidelines.
But Michelle Stanger, the county’s interim election director, attributes that vote total increase to the resolution of so-called “cure” votes.
“We had a box of cure letters and that’s where most of the (votes) came back in,” she explained.
If the ballot counting machine doesn’t recognize the voter’s signature, Stanger added, it kicks that ballot out and then the ballot has to be manually processed.
“Basically,” she said, “we send out a letter saying ‘we don’t recognize your signature. Can you please sign this affidavit and bring it back in so that we can county your ballot?’
“On the night of the recount, we reviewed all of those cure letters and reintroduced 70 (votes) into to the count.”
With that explanation, the canvass of the recount was officially certified by a unanimous vote of three members of the Logan Municipal Council, namely Simmonds, Amy Z. Anderson and Ernesto Lopez.
Regarding the ill-timed election investigation underway by the County Attorney’s office, Zook said Dec. 18 on the recount had consumed county officials’ attention for the past few days.
Now that the recount is over, the election investigation is proceeding and should be resolved shortly, he said.
Cache County personnel affected by being placed on administrative leave include County Clerk David Benson; Dustin Hansen, the county’s director of elections; and another unnamed employee.