Candidate requests recount
Posted on Thursday, November 16, 2006
BENTONVILLE - Justice of the peace candidate Cheryl Murphy on Wednesday formally requested a recount of the District 2 race.
Her action came at the urging of the Arkansas Democratic Party and dozens of county residents.
The state Democratic Party on Tuesday announced it would seek the recount, but election rules require that a candidate or the Election Commission make the formal request.
Murphy already had decided not to request the recount, and she urged members of the Benton County Election Commission on Wednesday to call for the recount themselves.
"This has been a real struggle for me," Murphy said Wednesday morning to a gathering that included election commissioners John Brown, Russ Odell and Lynn Chinn, plus District 2 Republican candidate Frank Winscott and his wife, Carolyn Winscott.
"I don't believe the numbers are going to change, but I don't believe people have confidence in the process anymore," Murphy said. "I'd like to try to bring some faith back to the process."
Election commissioners refused to call for the recount, so Murphy signed the form letter provided by the Arkansas Democratic Party, then submitted the letter to the commissioners.
"We as the Election Commission are satisfied (with the results )," Odell said. He and Chinn both feared that a recount could set a negative precedent for future elections.
Murphy's letter originally requested a hand count of all paper ballots, but she crossed out the word "hand"at the last minute. Now the commission will simply run all paper ballots through the scanners again and review every paper receipt printed from all electronic voting machines used in District 2 precincts.
Brown demonstrated to the group how the commission would cross-reference vote summaries and the paper receipts. He used a machine from a polling site at War Eagle as an example. All of the numbers matched for that machine.
"I think there is going to be a black cloud over the Election Commission unless you can show (voters ) what you just showed me," Murphy said after the demonstration.
Winscott told commissioners he does not question their integrity and thanked them for their work during the election. A recount, he said, could make an already negative situation worse.
"If you don't get an identical reproduction, that's just going to add to the confusion," he said.
The Election Commission released three versions of election results between the night of the election and Monday afternoon.
After Election Coordinator Jim McCarthy determined Nov. 8 that election results released the night of the election seemed inaccurate, the commission reloaded all of the electronic data from paper ballots. But those numbers seemed way too high - indicating more than 100 percent voter turnout in some precincts.
The latest results, in which commission members say they are confident, show voter turnout at 50 percent. Results released the night of the election showed voter turnout at 49 percent. Results released Thursday showed voter turnout at 83 percent.
Results in the JP race for District 2 originally showed Murphy led the race, while the last two sets of results showed that Winscott won the race by two different margins.
By midafternoon Wednesday, the Election Commission had not met to develop a plan or timeline for the recount.
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