Clark County Nursing Home Tax Falls 8 Votes Short
Ballot Problems May Force Special Election
You’ve heard the saying that every vote counts, right?
Tonight in Clark County, that was proven true once again. The ballot proposition to increase taxes to support the Clark County Nursing Home was defeated 355-347.
But there could be a problem.
According to Clark County Clerk Jena Church, some voters in some precincts may have received the wrong ballot. A new voting system was used for today’s election, which used tablet devices to verify voter registrations, and told poll workers which ballot to give voters. According to Church, she updated a number of registrations with new 911 addresses, and then updated the tablets again, but that inadvertently changed the ballot settings. The mistake was caught early this morning, but was still a problem at some poll locations.
County-wide votes, such as the Nursing Home tax question, should not have been effected by the mixup.
It will be up the Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft to decide whether to have a special election, and what races will be included.
Most of the races in Clark County were not contested, so it is unknown at this time if they will be included in a special election, if one is ordered by Ashcroft.
In the Clark County school board race, Jason Acklie received 557 votes, and Charles West received 421 for the two available seats. There were also 14 write in votes cast
In Ambulance District 1, Steve Howell received 204, while Keane Morrison got 35 votes.In Ambulance District 4, Connie Handyside received 70 votes, while Gary Whitaker picked up 57. Both Ambulance Districts had a single seat available.
In the Clark County Nursing Home District 2 board race, Mike Frazier edged Mickey Ayer 43-36.
In Kahoka’s West Ward, Larry Young was unopposed, and got 119 votes, with 4 right in votes also cast. In the East Ward, Orlie Yoder got 85 votes, with 3 write ins cast.
In Wayland, Sherry Bunker got 52 votes, Patty Golliher received 46, and Gloria Williams got 23 votes for the two open seats on the the Board of Aldermen.
In Wyaconda, Cookie Howell got 6 votes for East Ward Alderman, with 1 write in also cast. Tammy Hammond received 7 votes for West Ward.
Dale Clark earned 9 votes for Mayor of Revere, with 3 write ins, and in the Revere Alderman race James Engler got 10 votes, and David Wardlow got 2 votes for the two open seats.
Overall, there were 707 ballots cast, with a voter turnout of 14.03 percent.
We will update this story when we find out what the Secretary of State decides about the ballot mixups.
