MIFFLIN TOWNSHIP — An automatic recount for a roller-coaster mayoral race in the Village of Mifflin resulted in a new, final winner on Tuesday.
The Ashland County Board of Elections declared Freddie Craig, a write-in mayoral candidate, the winner.
The change comes a week following a coin toss that determined incumbent Vickie Shultz as the temporary winner, pending a state-mandated recount of the race.
Board of elections deputy director Shannon Johnson said one of the ballots from Mifflin had not originally counted for Craig.
“On one of the ballots we were hand recounting, we discovered the voter wrote Fred Craig’s name but didn’t color the oval,” she said. “So our tabulation system counted the race as under voted.”
She said the board determined the person intended to vote for Craig, and thus included that vote in its final tally. The extra vote broke the tie in Craig’s favor.
The board’s recount did not affect any other Ashland County races, including the close mayoral race in Perrysville where Steve Goines was determined the winner.
‘That’s crazy’
Johnson said the board of elections sent a certified letter notifying him of the automatic recount scheduled for Nov. 28. When he didn’t sign for it, Johnson said the office attempted to call him.
“We called, but his voicemail box was full. We couldn’t leave a message,” she said.
When reached by phone Wednesday, Craig was beside himself.
“Whoa,” he said. “I can’t hardly believe that.
“As a write-in, I didn’t expect to get that close. And then with the coin toss and now this? That’s crazy.”
The race was too close to call on Nov. 7. Unofficial tallies that night showed Shultz winning 25-24, but the race was too close because the board of elections awaited absentees and provisionals.
When provisionals were counted, Craig received one — creating a rare tie. The tie was then broken by the flip of a gold coin on Nov. 20. Shultz won the toss.
But the close race triggered an automatic recount, which happened Tuesday.
Johnson said she’s never experienced a race like the one in Mifflin.
“There have been other instances in recounts where we found anomalies just like this. So there wasn’t a mistake in our system, just a voter error. But yeah, never like this,” she said.
Priorities
Craig, 66, was first elected to the village’s council in 2002. He became mayor in 2012 and served through 2015, when Shultz was first elected. Craig then ran against her in 2019 but lost by 16 votes.
He and his wife, Philene, were then elected in November 2021 to serve a four-year term on council.
“The first thing I’m going to do is get a meeting with the village administrator and the guy contracted to run our sewer plant. That’s my first priority, getting this sewer plant fixed. I mean, it’s bad,” he said.
The facility, installed in 2017, received 122 violations from the Environmental Protection Agency between Jan. 1, 2017 and Aug. 1, 2019.
In May 2021, the facility dumped 5,000 gallons of sewage into an unnamed creek that runs through the Craigs’ backyard after the facility’s electricity went out. The incident caused the EPA to investigate the matter.
Craig said his second priority will be to “get this village a park.”
“And then pretty much everything else will sort itself out. At least I hope,” he said.
Legal battles
Craig’s tenure in public office in the village has not come without its issues.
He was arrested and jailed in January 2022 after being charged with menacing by stalking. The charge, ultimately dismissed, stemmed from an alleged neighborly feud between himself and Joyce Amos — a former councilwoman.
Amos has since been suspended and expelled indefinitely from office.
A year after Craig’s criminal case was dismissed, he filed a civil case against the village, its mayor (Vickie Shultz), former councilwoman Joyce Amos, Mifflin police Chief Jerry Snay and the village’s police department.
The civil suit alleges Snay’s arresting of Craig was “illegally politically motivated” and claims the “false criminal charges carried a jail sentence and exposed (Craig) to the potential loss of freedom.”
It went on: “The acts of the Defendants were unconscionable and offended the bounds of decency. Defendants knew or should have known their acts would cause the emotional distress, mental anguish, embarrassment, anxiety, fear and humiliation to (Craig).”
The lawsuit, filed in the Ashland County Common Pleas Court in June, is ongoing and has not been resolved, according to court records.
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