Recount did not change council’s election results
November 20th, 2008A recount of votes cast in Gaylord’s City Council race between incumbent Carl Wetzel and Sue Johnson-Schmitt did not change the results.
One thousand ballots were counted by hand Friday and Wetzel retained his seat with 472 votes, two more than Johnson-Schmitt, who received 470 votes.
Candidate Chad Muchow received 710 votes.
City Administrator Kevin McCann, city accountant Lori Waltz, and head election judge Tom Doughan were involved in the recount.
McCann said that it was his job to separate the ballots into the correct candidate piles. Ballots in which the voters selected Wetzel and Johnson-Schmitt were placed in Wetzel’s pile first, were then counted, and then they were placed in Johnson-Schmitt’s pile and counted.
Waltz and Doughan counted the ballots, and then double-checked each other’s pile.
One ballot was rejected because the voter had voted for three city council candidates instead of two. That rejection did not affect the outcome, McCann said, because the voting machine had already rejected it.
McCann said that Gaylord voters know how to properly fill in the ovals and there was not a need to determine voter intent.
The recount was held in the courthouse annex basement.
