MANSFIELD — A pair of local election decisions will not be official for another week.
A total of 123 votes will be added to the official May 2 primary election, numbers which could impact a City of Mansfield race and a countywide tax issue.
The votes, including 45 in the City of Mansfield, will be added before the totals are certified on May 16 at 3 p.m. by the Richland County Board of Elections.
That bipartisan board of two Republicans and two Democrats voted unanimously on Wednesday to accept 67 provisional ballots cast on Election Day and also 17 absentee ballots that were postmarked by May 2 and arrived by May 6.
The board also rejected 12 provisional ballots and three late absentee ballots.
Board of Elections Director Matt Finfgeld told the board that another 39 ballots from Worthington Township Precinct B will also be counted due to an issue uploading two memory sticks on Election Day.
The extra votes could impact the Democratic Party primary for City of Mansfield Law Director and also the final outcome of a Richland County Park District property tax levy.
According to final, unofficial vote totals on Election Night from the Board of Elections, Rollie Harper received 788 votes, 11 more than Christopher Brown.
There was no Republican in the race, so the primary winner will likely win the seat in November.
It was not announced Wednesday how many of the the additional 45 votes from city voters were Democratic ballots and how many were Republican.
The Richland County Park District levy had received 6,139 “yes” votes, according to final, unofficial totals on Election Night. There were 6,126 “no” votes — a difference of just 13.
An automatic recount in a race will be triggered if the final total reflects a difference of less than 1/2 of 1 percent.
A candidate may request a recount if the difference is larger than that.
But that request must be made within five days of the vote being certified and will cost $65 per precinct recounted, according to Richland County Board of Elections Deputy Director Jane Zimmerman.
At the end of the meeting Wednesday, new board member Larry Weirich complimented the work done by Fingfeld, Zimmerman and their staff.
“This is like a well-oiled machine. You got it going on. You should certainly be commended,” Weirich said.
Board chairman Bill Freytag agreed.
“Everybody works well together in this office. It’s been that way for years,” Freytag said.
