Hand recount shows no problems

POMEROY––A state-mandated hand recount of ballots from the August 6 Primary Election revealed that the machine tabulation matched the hand count in Garfield County ballots cast in the Commissioner of Public Lands race for second-highest vote getter. The Secretary of State ordered the recount when just 51 votes separated Republican Sue Kuehl Pederson and Democrat Dave Upthegrove.

There were 33 batches of approximately 25 ballots each counted by the Auditor's Office. A few were smaller than 25 and there were no discrepancies between the hand-count and the machine tabulation.

The canvassing board will meet on Sep. 3 at 8:30 to canvas the ballots and certify the count to the State, and then the State will certify the hand count.

The ballots were counted in small batches and each batch was counted by both Keller and Wolf, who compared their results for accuracy, then checked against the machine results by Lueck.

Republican Jaime Herrera Beutler, a former Congresswoman and legislator, leads in first place with 419,297 ballots cast, or 22.03 percent of the vote.

Kuehl Pederson and Upthegrove are tied in a virtual dead heat. Both received 20.82 percent of the vote with 396,249 and 396,300 votes, respectively.

Herrera Beutler and either Kuehl Pederson or Upthegrove will vie for the post in the November 5 General Election.

This is the closest race in Washington's primary, closer than the 1960 race for Superintendent of Public Instruction, where the two candidates were separated by only 252 votes.

The commissioner of public lands oversees WA's public timber lands and is also the elected head of the Department of Natural Resources, or DNR.