Published: June 03, 2008 11:58 am      

LaRue Gets Nod

Recount shows LaRue won commission race by 5 votes

KEYSER, W.Va. - After 10 hours of laboriously counting each Republican ballot from the May 13 primary election, Mineral County election officials declared Janice LaRue the winner of her party's nomination for county commission - by five votes.

Elections Clerk Lauren Ellifritz released the final tally shortly before 7 p.m., announcing that incumbent LaRue had finished with 1,112 votes, followed closely by challenger Roger Leatherman with 1,107 votes.

The third candidate, Annette Favara, trailed with 840 votes.

"Mr. Leatherman's number did not change, and Ms. Favara's number did not change. But Mrs. LaRue picked up three votes," Ellifritz said at the end of the recount Monday.

Picking up those three votes basically brought the incumbent back to where she started on election night, when preliminary counts gave her 1,102 votes to Leatherman's 1,097 - a five-vote lead.

The official canvass held three days after the primary, however, seemed to narrow her lead to only two votes after the provisional ballots were counted.

Provisional ballots - those which are questioned or challenged for some reason by the poll workers - are not counted until they can be properly examined and investigated during the canvass.

On May 20, Leatherman requested a recount and each of the three Republican candidates were legally notified and given the opportunity to represent themselves or send a representative to witness the proceedings.

Monday, Leatherman himself was present while Chuck Butler represented LaRue, his sister.

Favara chose not to attend or be represented.

The proceedings got under way at 9 a.m., with County Commissioner Cindy Pyles giving instructions to the participants.

Ellifritz then administered an oath to Carrie Barbarito, Sara Geis, Ron Liller and Tiana Warner, as deputy clerks for the office of the county clerk for the purpose of counting the ballots.

In order to count the ballots, the deputy clerks had to hand-count each paper ballot for each of the 32 precincts, with Barbarito and Geis taking turns calling out the names and Liller and Warner tallying the results.

In addition, the paper ballots from early voting had to be separated into precincts and counted along with the other paper ballots.

The results of the ballots cast using the Ivotronic touch-screen computers were printed out on rolls of paper resembling adding machine paper.

The deputies had one and sometimes two rolls to go through for each precinct - carefully picking out the Republican ballots from the Democratic and non-partisan (board of education) ballots on each roll.

In addition, each time they counted a precinct they had to go through one long roll that included the results of early voting - with the precincts listed in no certain order.

After each count, Liller's and Warner's numbers had to match.

If they did not, the portion that did not match had to be recounted.

At the end of each precinct, Liller's and Warner's numbers had to match the results of the canvass.

If they did not, the entire precinct had to be recounted.

The numbers did not match on three occasions - in Precinct 3 (Calvary Pentecostal Church in Ridgeley), Precinct 7 (Fort Ashby Primary School), and Precinct 12 (Wiley Ford School).

Once those precincts were recounted, it was determined that LaRue had picked up the three votes.

There was at least one other precinct where the numbers at first did not match, but a recount corrected the discrepancy.

Both Leatherman and Butler were given the opportunity to ask questions or challenge any action at the conclusion of each precinct.

Joyce Burgoyne, from the Secretary of State's Office in Charleston, was also present to oversee the proceedings.

LaRue will now face Democratic candidate Donald C. Ashby in the November general election.

Ashby, the lone candidate on the Democratic primary ballot, finished with 3,058 votes.

Contact Liz Beavers at lbeavers@times-news.com.