SIDNEY — Different day, same results.
A recount of the Nov. 8 election results for the village of Anna .25 income tax levy was held Wednesday morning by the Shelby County Board of Elections. Three teams of people were present to do the recount and required audit.
Two teams worked on the Anna recount. After hand counting each vote and then running the ballots through the voting machines, the results were the same: the levy failed by four votes.
The final results found 347 voters casting a yes vote, while 351 said no to the levy. There was one over vote — meaning a person voted yes and no for the levy — and 30 under votes where that number of voters didn’t cast a vote on the levy.
Three machines were set up for the recount — one for Election Day ballots, another for provisional ballots and the third for absentee ballots.
On Election Day, 267 people voted yes for the levy while 274 voted no. There was one over vote and 16 under votes. Of the people who voted on an absentee ballot, 78 voted yes, while 67 voted no. there were 14 under votes. Provisional ballots found two people voting for the levy and 10 voting against the levy.
The recount was requested by a committee of five Anna voters who cast a yes vote in the November election. Richard Eshleman was the chairperson of the committee.
Cheryl Maier, precinct judge for the Anna precinct, was present for the meeting to explain why there was one more ballot for the precinct than there was a signature. There were 557 signatures on the poll book while the counter registered 558 votes.
Maier said there were 30 people in line when the polls opened on Nov. 8. All the booths were full and people were waiting to cast their votes.
One gentleman, she said, got his ballot. He stood in line for a while and then went to the line for the voting machine. He placed his ballot in there, she said, and when the machine scanned it, a beep was heard.
Maier asked him if he wanted to submit his ballot as it was and he said yes. After the ballot was placed through the machine, the man told her that he thought the machine was filling in his votes and the ballot was actually blank.
The man received a second ballot, which he marked and then submitted it. Maier kept a record of what had happened and the steps she took to correct the misunderstanding.
Board of Elections member Jon Baker told Maier she had done the right thing in letting him cast his vote.
After a brief executive session, the board accepted the resignation of Deputy Director Phil Warnecke. He will be retiring and his last day of work will be March 3, 2017. He has been with the Board of Elections for eight years.
Chairman Chris Gibbs said the board will discuss the procedure to replace Warnecke at a future meeting.
The board also conducted an audit, which was a 5 percent sampling of the votes cast on Nov. 8. Precincts that were audited included precinct 14, Clinton Township with 523 votes; precinct 21, Green Township with 500 votes; and precinct 20, Franklin township with 1,001 votes. The total audit included 2,024 ballots.
The audit included the presidential race, the Supreme Court Race between Pat DeWine and Cynthia Rice and the Shelby County Treasurer’s race between Linda Meininger and John Coffield.
Gibbs said there were no discrepancies noted on the audit.
The regular December meeting — Dec. 19 — will not be held. The board’s next meeting will be Jan. 9 at which time discussion will be held about replacing Warnecke as deputy director.
