Local candidates consider challenging election results

After voting concerns, contested candidates for the Young County Commissioner seats stated Thursday they will be looking into the election results and potentially requesting a recount of those results. All three local county contested positions in the March primary election were within 56 votes or fewer.

Incumbent Matt Pruitt stated Thursday he will be pursuing a recount of the unofficial election totals released Tuesday for the position of Young County Precinct 2. In the results, Pruitt lost to opponent Scott Shook by 40 votes. Pruitt received 360 votes, or 47.37% of the total vote, while Shook received 400 votes, or 52.63% of the total vote.

New candidate Rob Ward said he would be looking into the procedures behind a recount with the Texas Secretary of State for the position of Young County Precinct 4. In the results, Ward lost to Incumbent Jimmy Wiley by 56 votes. Ward received 236 votes, or 44.7% of the total vote, while Wiley received 292 votes, or 55.3% of the total vote.

The third contested seat was for Young County Justice of the Peace Precinct 3, which was won by new candidate Joey Stewart. Stewart won by 25 votes over opponent Lonnie Wales. Wales received 387 votes, or 48.44% of the total vote, while Stewart received 412 votes, or 51.56% of the total vote. As of Thursday afternoon, The Graham Leader had not received a response if Wales would be pursuing a recount.

A recount of an election must be requested no later than two days after the canvassing of the votes, according to the Texas Secretary of State. According to the department, a recount does not look at how voters were qualified to vote in person or by mail. A recount also does not authorize more than one recount of a race or measure.

“If a petition to request a recount for a particular race or measure is filed, this does not authorize all races or measures on the ballot to be recounted as well. Only the race or measure that was petitioned for will be recounted,” the Secretary of State office states on its website.

The county also had to adjust its districts due to an error in the redistricting process which was reported in late January to the Young County Commissioners Court. Young County Elections Administrator Kaitlyn Mosley said problems occurred with the updated redistricting.

“So with redistricting, they brought it down past when they were supposed to do it,” she said. “It was supposed to be done way before I even got here. So that caused a lot of issues. Once I finally had it done, we sent it to our VR (voter registration) system, (...) that’s how we do our rolls. And they didn’t make the changes they were supposed to. So that’s what happened, (...) on that first day.”

Mosley said the first week and primarily the first day voters were impacted by the county’s voter registration system not being updated with the redistricting data. The elections administrator said the issue was fixed during the early voting period.

“Yes, we believed we had them fixed. That first day is when we noticed it, someone came in, they told us what happened, and we looked into it. So after that, we got a master list of our road ranges that I got from the 911 office. And each early voting polling location, which is NCTC and Olney, they had that list. And that’s how they were going through and checking to see if you were getting the right ballot or not. Then we had sample ballots out there,” she said. “If anyone had any questions, we told them to check the sample ballot before you begin voting. If you don’t agree with it, give us a call or check with the 911 (coordinator). We’ll check with what we have, we’ll make sure you get the right ballot.”

During early voting Mosley advised voters and poll workers to contact her regarding issues with ballots being incorrectly issued.

“What I told them is, you know, if these people have questions, give me a call and they actually had Harley Moore, she’s our 911 coordinator, they could call her office and we could double check everything if they had a question on it. So they could still vote a normal ballot. We could change the precinct on their controller, so instead of, you know, you get your driver’s license, put it on there, you check in, and they usually scan it, so instead of scanning it, if it was in the wrong precinct, they could go to the controller itself, create an access code for whatever ballot they actually needed,” she said.

Mosley is allowing voters with identifiable precinct issues to fill out a provisional ballot as she awaits guidance on the next steps from the Texas Secretary of State.

The election results, and those challenging the results, are a developing story. The Graham Leader will update this story as information both online as it is obtained and within the paper as of press time.