Election officials to begin ballot recount

JACKSON, Mo. -- Election judges today will start manually recounting more than 6,000 punch-card ballots cast in the Aug. 6 Republican Party primary for 157th District state representative.

The recount, ordered by Secretary of State Matt Blunt, will begin at 8 a.m. in the Cape Girardeau County Administration Building in Jackson and at 9 a.m. in the Perry County Administration Building in Perryville.

Election judges will have to count 1,655 ballots in Perry County and 4,748 ballots in Cape Girardeau County.

Perry County election officials hope to finish recounting there by the end of the day. The recount in Cape Girardeau County is expected to take two days, with work halting around 4:30 p.m. today and concluding on Friday, officials said.

"All of our stuff is ready," said Patty Schlosser, Cape Girardeau County elections supervisor.

Blunt ordered the recount at the request of Jackson resident Donna Lichtenegger who lost by 24 votes to Scott Lipke of Jackson in the primary election. The heated race involved four candidates seeking to succeed retiring state Rep. David Schwab, R-Jackson.

The winner faces Democrat Chuck Miller of rural Cape Girardeau County in the November election.

Behind closed doors

At each site, recounting will be done behind closed doors by two teams of three election judges each under the supervision of local election officials and a representative from the secretary of state's office. The workload will be divided up between the two teams by precincts.

Lichtenegger, Lipke and their attorneys are allowed to witness the recount.

State law prohibits anyone else, including the news media, from witnessing ballot recounts ordered by the secretary of state.

"It is kind of like a jury going into locked chambers, " Schlosser said. "We've talked about calling in lunch."

Both Lipke and Lichtenegger said late Wednesday afternoon they were undecided about whether to attend the recount. Both said they might stop by for the start of the recount.

"I am not paranoid about this," Lichtenegger said.

Lipke said he's confident that election judges will properly count the ballots.

"I am thankful the recount is being done so quickly," he said.

Four candidates ran

Ballots will be recounted for all four Republican candidates. Besides Lipke and Lichtenegger, the candidates include Gerald Adams of Jackson and Tom Sachse of Friedheim.

Lichtenegger has said her supporters urged her to seek a recount because of counting machine problems that surfaced when Cape Girardeau County votes were tabulated on election night.

The Cape Girardeau County Republican punch-card ballots were run through a borrowed machine the day after the election. Cape Girardeau County Clerk Rodney Miller decided on that recount just as a precaution.

The recount gave additional votes to Lichtenegger but not enough to change the outcome.

Districtwide, Lipke ended up with 1,802 votes to 1,778 for Lichtenegger. But in Cape Girardeau County, Lipke won by 239 votes. No counting problems surfaced in Perry County and ballots there weren't recounted the day after the election.

Randy Taylor, Perry County clerk, said the ballots in his county will be counted by hand in a meeting room in the basement of the Administration Building in Perryville. When ballots are counted by machine, it's done in a room adjoining the clerk's office.

Taylor said the manual recount will be held in the meeting room because it's larger size. "When you count them manually, you don't want people sitting on top of each other," he said.

Two counting judges on each team will check the punch-card ballots and determine the vote, which will be recorded by the third judge on each team.

Schlosser said any ballots where more than one candidates' name was punched in the primary race won't be counted.

mbliss@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 123