An NPR member station
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Spokane Election Certified; One Mandatory Recount

Spokane County

Spokane County’s election canvassing board today [Tuesday] certified the November general election. But there’s still one piece of unfinished business.

County Auditor Vicky Dalton says her office often is required to conduct recounts when races are close. This year there’s one mandatory recount, for the office of county assessor. Republican Tom Konis trailed fellow Republican Leonard Christian in a tight race on election night, but he has since pulled ahead by 152 votes out of 231,000 cast. That’s a difference of less than one-tenth of one percent. Dalton says t triggers a machine recount of the ballots, as opposed to the more laborious hand recount.

“With a machine recount, we will pull the ballots out, we will run all of them through the machines. Any of them that kick out as an overvote, meaning they marked two ovals, or an undervote, meaning nothing was read, or the write-in line is marked, those will be pulled and inspected individually," Dalton said.

Dalton estimates the recount will take four or five days, as opposed to two weeks for a hand recount.

More than 318-thousand voters registered in Spokane County, a record, according to Dalton. Nearly 73% of them cast ballots, as opposed to about 65% in a normal off-year general election.