Elmore County recounted 3193 ballots by hand Monday after more than 10% of ballots from the November 4th election were not tallied.
After an initial look at the county’s process last week, Secretary of State Phil McGrane ordered the review of all paper ballots. On Monday, a team from his office went to Mountain Home and publicly recounted the votes by hand.
“We counted an additional 373 ballots that had not been counted on Election Day. And in the end, all of the outcomes for each of the races and issues on the ballot remained the same,” McGrane said.
About 20 people from the public, including candidates and media, attended the recount.
While some races were initially determined by very small margins, the secretary said count disparity between each of the candidates did not change that much after the recount.
“Given the high volume of ballots that had not been counted, I will say I was surprised to see none of the outcomes changed,” he said.
McGrane added none of the ballots were ever missing or lost. The results of the auditing process have yet to be released.
“One of the things that makes this a little confusing is it does appear that the county did process the ballots on election night. It's not exactly clear why results were not tallied for those ballots,” he said.
The review team will return to the county Tuesday to continue their investigation. The hand count results will be canvassed and certified by the Elmore County Board of Commissioners on Wednesday.
The deadline for McGrane and the County Clerk to seek a judicial review is December 2. Candidates can still request a recount or contest the election.
