Saturday, November 21, 2015
Backers of anti-fracking charter amendment will make request today
YOUNGSTOWN
A hand recount of an anti-fracking charter amendment in Youngstown will start Dec. 1 and could take two days to complete.
Backers of the so-called Community Bill of Rights said they will officially ask for the recount today after the Mahoning County Board of Elections certifies the results of the Nov. 3 general election.
“We won’t do the recount until Dec. 1 to give time to anyone else who wants to request a recount,” said Joyce Kale-Pesta the board’s director. “We don’t expect anyone else to ask for a recount, but [we] want that option available.”
Ray Beiersdorfer, one of the backers of the anti-fracking charter amendment, had a check for $2,475 with him at Friday’s board meeting, and said he’d turn it over to board officials today for the recount.
The board is allowed to charge up to $55 a precinct, and Youngstown has 45 precincts.
It would be the first hand recount of paper ballots in the county in at least two decades.
The anti-fracking measure failed for the fifth time though the 2.94 percent margin of defeat is the closest.
The board also will count provisional and late-arriving absentee ballots today and certify the ballot. That could slightly alter that margin.
Also, today’s certification will make Struthers Mayor Terry Stocker’s write-in campaign victory official.
Stocker is beating Democrat Danny Thomas Jr. 1,408 to 1,335 – a 73-vote lead.
Board officials said there are 69 uncounted provisional and late absentee ballots to count in Struthers today so Thomas can’t catch Stocker.
On Nov. 3, the election night, the board had Thomas winning by 72 votes. The board, however, had failed to count 147 write-in ballots from two precincts in Struthers 3rd Ward. Those votes were counted Nov. 14 with 145 of them being for Stocker, who ran as a write-in candidate and will win his third four-year term as Struthers mayor.
Board employees will start counting provisional and late-arriving absentee ballots – those postmarked before Election Day – at 8 a.m. today and take about three hours to complete, Kale-Pesta said.
Countywide, there are 774 provisional ballots and 123 late-arriving absentees.