2,661 VOTES APIECE
The race between Bart LeBon and Kathryn Dodge is tied for District 1 House seat. During the auditing process, the Division of Elections found more ballots for both LeBon and Dodge.
This is the seat being vacated by Rep. Scott Kawasaki. LeBon is a Republican, Dodge is a Democrat.
Until today, LeBon was up by five votes. No additional overseas absentee ballots were received by today’s deadline.
Mechanical vote detection equipment did not pick up on the newly found votes, according to Must Read Alaska sources. A human eye verified the extra votes.
They found six more votes for Dodge, and one for LeBon.
What happened is that the State Review Board went through the ballots by hand. In one instance, the ballot had a tear on the “timing mark” and went through the machine and didn’t get counted, according to sources.
Every ballot except the absentee ballots for District 1 have been counted by both machine and by hand by the State Review Board.
The extra votes were found during a time when none of the Republican vote observers were present. The Republican observers in Fairbanks were surprised to learn that they were not notified about the audit.
Absentee ballots will be audited this Friday.
Next Friday the observers will be able to be present in Juneau when the recount takes place.
The last time a House race was tied was in 2006, when Bryce Edgmon and Rep. Carl Moses flipped a coin; Edgmon won. The candidates can flip a coin or draw cards to decide.
Must Read Alaska will continue to update this story – check back.
The Division of Elections released this statement today:
The bi-partisan State Review Board has completed its review of all ballots from House District 1, with the exception of absentee ballots. Absentee ballots will be audited on Friday, November 23.
Candidates Barton LeBon and Kathryn Dodge are currently tied with 2,661 votes each. The board thoroughly reviewed the election materials from the district and these results are still preliminary until certification. The deadline for the division to receive overseas ballots was on Wednesday, November 21 (15 days after the election). Following mail delivery on Wednesday, the division did not receive any additional overseas ballots for House District 1.
The division has notified both candidates of the current tie and will conduct a recount per state law. If the tie
is certified, a recount would take place in the director’s office in Juneau on Friday, November 30.
The ballots
will be thoroughly scrutinized by the State Review Board. Per state law, in the conduct of a recount, the
director will open and count properly cast absentee ballots that are received after the 15-day count, but
before the completion of a recount.
If the results of the recount re-confirm the tie, the prevailing candidate will be determined under state law. The State Review Board will reconvene on Friday at 12 p.m. in Juneau.
Results are unofficial until certification.
Why weren’t there any Republican observers in the room when the extra votes were tabulated? Geez. When are we going to learn that you can’t take your eyes off these characters? We know which party cheats. There should be cameras set up and rolling in the tabulation area.
Why does it seem that in every close election they end up finding ballots when nobody is around and those ballots lean heavily Democratic?
Always funny to read comments from Republicans whining about voter fraud and vote counting theft. Florida 2000 anyone? Ohio 2004? Voter suppression throughout the country in areas of high concentrations of poor Democratic Party voting districts? Why do you conservatives despise voting for everyone so much? Why do you hate freedom?
Are you really defending voter fraud using Florida as an example, really? Really?
Vote early, vote often…the reason conservatives despise “voting for everyone so much” is because we believe in one person one vote we do not believe in vote early, vote often the way liberals and progressives do.
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