LONOKE — The Lonoke County Election Commission did a primary election recount Friday night after officials realized they had failed to count one precinct’s ballots, but no outcomes changed.
Tim Blair, commission chairman, had said earlier Friday that a few races were so close the recount could change some outcomes.
Among those races was the contest for the Republican nomination for circuit clerk. In the count Tuesday night, Deborah Oglesby led Denise Brown 1,475 to 1,364.
The complete but unofficial recount totals in that race: Oglesby . . . . . . . . . . . . 2,144 Brown . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2,040
Earlier Friday, Blair said commissioners failed to count Election Day returns from Magness precinct, which is in northern LonokeCounty. Ballots cast by early voters in that precinct were counted, however.
Blair said the problem happened because precinct workers were having trouble closing down a voting machine, so commissioners told them just to bring all of the equipment in for counting.
Voting results, he explained, are contained on storage devices called personal electronic ballots.
Election commissioners normally compare these electronic ballots with printouts from the voting machines. When the precinct workersbrought theirs down, they left that precinct’s electronic ballots in a printer case, and nobody thought to remove them, he said.
Normally, he said, at the end of the night, counters go through and download all the electronic ballots and check off each precinct. They were tired late Tuesday night, though, and failed to do that properly, he said.
“The next morning, we immediately realized that Magness precinct wasn't there,” Blair said.
“We should have just been a little more careful,” he said.
Arkansas, Pages 16 on 05/26/2012