Local outcomes not effected by Crawford County recount

GIRARD -- Win margins for elected officials representing Bourbon County were too great to be threatened by a polling malfunction in Crawford County according to Crawford County Clerk Don Pyle. The error, discovered shortly after the Nov. 4 general election, did however spark a full recount Tuesday.

"I believe there were only about 500 ballots effected total," Pyle said in a recent interview.

County officials determined after testing voting equipment over the weekend that the problem was with a card that gave the machine instructions to record the vote. Pyle elaborated calling it a "rotation software" problem and claimed the machine was determining which official received votes incorrectly.

The machine counted ballots from three precincts at Countryside Christian Church in Pittsburg.

Kansas Senate District 13 candidates Patty Horgan, D-Pittsburg, and Bob Marshall, R-Fort Scott, as well as Kansas House District 2 candidates Jeffrey Locke, R-Arma, and Bob Grant, D-Cherokee, did see slight changes in their total vote counts due to the error. However, the differences were all within 15 votes and not enough to threaten the outcome of either election. In the end Marshall defeated Horgan by nearly 3,000 votes while seat incumbent Grant defeated Locke by almost 2,500 votes.

"I don't think it's a difference of more than 10 votes in those (Kansas Senate and House) elections," said Pyle.

While most officials were able to relax, knowing their positions were safe, Crawford County attorney candidates found their tight race growing tighter. Only 60 votes apart after the initial count Nov. 4, Republican Michael Gayoso, Jr. and Democratic incumbent John Gutierrez played major roles in the Crawford County Commission's decision to order a full recount Monday.

Two Republicans, John Minton and Pam Henderson, and two Democrats, Beth Bradrick and Don Rohrbaugh, counted more than 16,000 ballots over an eight hour period Tuesday in the Crawford County Commissioners' office.

The recount resulted in a 14 vote win for Gayoso 7,796 to Gutierrez's 7,782.

Provisional ballots from 31 voters finalized the election Wednesday. Again by 14 votes Gayoso came out on top 7,810 to 7,796.

Due to the close margin of Gayso's victory, Gutierrez now has the option of requesting a hand recount. If requested, Gutierrez would be fully responsible for the cost of the recount unless it overturned the result.

Commissioners said the recount was an important move to reinstate the community's trust in voting machines and the process as a whole.

Beth Bradrick, chairwoman of the Crawford County Democrats, watched the weekend testing and called the problems "a very serious matter."

"Particularly since we're using machines and there's always been some question about them and their accuracy and their fallibility," Bradrick said. "My concern is how this will impact upon voters in the future. Some people are very suspicious of them and will always want to do a paper ballot, particularly after (2000) down in Florida in the presidential election. It brought all this to our attention."

As far as the machine error, Pyle said the problem has been corrected and precautions will be taken to prevent future malfunctions.

"It was something that wasn't really brought up in training, but it's something we'll practice on more in the future. We'll be more vigilant when we're doing the programming and testing," Pyle said.

Some information in this article was contributed by Associated Press reports.