As The Community News went to press this week, at least one recount had started and another was planned in recent Republican Primary runoff races.
A paper ballot recount requested by Eric Contreras was scheduled to begin at 2 p.m. Wednesday, June 8. When all the runoff votes had been tallied, Contreras trailed Mike Hale by only 10 votes, 2,450 to Hale’s 2,460, in the Pct. 4 Commissioner’s race.
According to Parker County Republican Chair Scott Utley, the Precinct 4 hand recount was to be conducted at six stations. Each station would have three people: a caller and a representative from each campaign to tally the votes.
The Texas House District 60 race was scheduled to be recounted on Thursday, June 9 with the same format.
In that race, Mike Olcott originally trailed Glenn Rogers 9,261 to 8,509 district-wide. However, when it was discovered that one Parker County box with 2,070 votes had not been counted on election night, the differential in that race tightened to only about 300 votes.
“We were obviously disappointed when the results came in on election night indicating that we lost our race by 752 votes after all precincts had been reported. When I woke up Wednesday morning, I was at peace with the results,” Olcott said.
After learning of the uncounted votes, however, Olcott requested the hand recount in Parker County.
“While I do not expect foul play, HD 60 voters deserve to have full confidence that every legal vote was counted and the outcome was accurate,” Olcott said. “My hope is a recount will do just that.”
However, Olcott also requested recounts in the other two counties in the district, Stephens and Palo Pinto.
The Stephens County recount was completed and reportedly confirmed the original vote counts there.
The Palo Pinto recount was set for Friday.
Parker County’s voting machines create a paper backup ballot for each vote cast. The paper ballots will be used for the recounts.
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