Lois Bahle, the Democrat candidate for the District No. 3 commissioner seat in the Nov. 5 General Election, fell just six votes behind the Republican candidate, Will Bunek, at 1,319 votes to Bunek’s 1,325 votes. Shortly after the results were certified, Bahle filed a petition for a recount of the votes cast in her precincts.
County Clerk Michelle Crocker brought in the “best of the best” of her election workers to hand-count the ballots at the government center in Suttons Bay Tuesday morning. Crocker said she expected the recount to be completed after “the better part of the day” had passed, which was after this edition of the newspaper went to print.
Under Michigan Compiled Law Act 168.862, any losing candidate for local offices may petition for a recount if they allege a good-faith belief that “but for fraud or mistake, the candidate would have had a reasonable chance of winning the election.”
Bahle was initially shown as defeating Bunek when the county posted unofficial results the morning after Election Day, with 1,114 votes to Bunek’s 973 votes. But by the end of the week, the county’s board of canvassers discovered that test data was not purged from a tabulator used at the county government center.
This oversight led to the county incorrectly reporting numerous sample ballots that were fed into the tabulator to confirm that it was working properly, rather than 3,156 actual votes. This caused Bunek to leap ahead of Bahle in a dramatic reversal.
Shortly before filing her petition, Bahle said she “owe(s) it to my constituents to request a recount,” given the circumstances and how close the District No. 3 commissioner race seems to be.
Crocker said that the state considers the missed ballots to be the result of human error. Adding these 3,156 votes also changed the outcomes of the District nos. 2 and 5 commissioner races, the drain commissioner race; three township trustees races; and a Glen Lake school board race. The official results with these missed votes are available at leelanau.gov/ electionresults.asp.
Kathy Dawkins, who was initially shown as winning one of two Leland Township trustee seats but fell behind Mariann Kirch with the added votes, also requested a recount. However, she withdrew her request by Nov. 22, citing the “financial strain it would put on Leland Township” to carry out a recount in this race.
The recount has not been completed at the time of writing. Crocker said that if the election workers discover another discrepancy while hand-counting ballots, the recounted numbers will overwrite the official results.
