Leelanau County Vote Tally Error Changes County Results
On Friday the Leelanau Ticker reported that a major election snafu that changes control of Leelanau County government:
Leelanau County Clerk Michelle Crocker tells The Ticker that a batch of a few thousand early votes were not properly reported as the county populated vote totals for the public to view on election night. This omission was discovered during canvassing, as election officials reviewed hard copy printouts.
The updated vote count – still very unofficial until the canvassing process is over – shows that apparent county commission victors Kama Ross and Scott Perry will lose to Republicans Alan Campbell and Mark Walter, respectively. Republican Will Bunek also pulled ahead of apparent Democrat victor Lois Bahle by seven votes, a race so close that Crocker cautioned to wait until the canvassing process is over.
The drain commission race will flip from Democrat Faith Hoekstra to Republican Timothy O’Non. Additional township races could also be affected, Crocker says.
Crocker says her office is still looking into what happened, but the issue appears to be a software problem.
“The numbers for the early voting site were not reflected within the unofficial numbers. They were put in just like all the precincts, but they were not in the report,” she tells The Ticker. “It was discovered during canvassing that the report we use to upload to the public website that everyone’s looking at did not contain everything.”
