Butte-Silver Bow election officials must conduct a complete recount of the June 4 primary election results in the next few days because they believe about 1,000 ballots were inadvertently counted twice on election night.
A judge ordered the recount Friday and the new results could affect a few close races, including a four-way contest for state District Court judge where Ann Shea and Frank Joseph finished with the most votes and were to advance to the Nov. 5 general election.
People cast their votes in the Butte-Silver Bow primary election at the Butte Civic Center. A judge ordered a recount of the primary election, which will be Tuesday
Clerk and Recorder Linda Sajor-Joyce said it appears that human error is behind the miscount but regardless, ballots will be unsealed and a recount will be done Tuesday.
Sajor-Joyce said she fielded phone calls Friday from people upset about the situation and late Friday night, Jason Ellsworth, the Republican president of the Montana Senate, weighed in.
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Ellsworth, R-Hamilton, is appointing a special committee to “investigate the incident and determine what changes to the law may be required to prevent similar situations in the future.”
“Our elections must be beyond reproach,” Ellsworth said in a news release. “This committee will determine the facts and work with Montana’s election officials to respond appropriately.”
Shea finished first in the District Court primary race with 3,031 votes, Joseph had 2,970, William Joyce got 2,906 and Michael McKeon had 2,219. A 1,000-vote discrepancy could affect anyone in that race.
A District 5 seat on the Council of Commissioners was also a close race, and even though J.P. Gallagher finished first by a comfortable margin in a four-way primary for chief executive, Bill Foley finished second with 404 more votes than Rayelynn Brandl. Foley advanced to the general election based on the prior results but that could conceivably change.
“I think what happened, because this has happened to us in the past, is that someone accidentally took ballots that had come out of the tabulator, put them in the wrong spot and they got counted again,” Sajor-Joyce told The Montana Standard on Friday.
She conducted a more thorough audit of the numbers from all precincts after an interested citizen questioned what appeared to be a discrepancy, she said.
“The number of actual ballots counted exceeded the number of absentee ballots by approximately 1,000 votes,” Sajor-Joyce said in an affidavit the Butte-Silver Bow County Attorney’s Office filed in state District Court.
“It is my belief that some of the races with multiple candidates may be affected by a recount due to the results being so close,” she stated in the affidavit. “A candidate may have been credited with votes resulting from a double-counted ballot, which in turn would skew the results.”
Mike Salvagni, a special District Court judge appointed in the case, ordered the recount.
Preparation will begin at the Butte Civic Center on Monday morning and a recount will start Tuesday, Sajor-Joyce said. It must be completed by Wednesday because Thursday is the deadline to have all the names and information needed for the general election ballots.
Kelli Fivey, interim county attorney in Butte-Silver Bow, said her office filed the court petition for a recount once it was notified of any possible irregularity. It needs to be fixed, she said.
“There is really no other scenario that we would have considered other than making it right,” Fivey told The Standard.
Fivey and Matt Enrooth are running for county attorney this year, but they were the only two candidates on the primary ballot, meaning both advanced to the general election no matter what.
No state races will be affected except the one for District Court judge in Butte-Silver Bow, Sajor-Joyce said.
In the District 5 primary council race, Russell O’Leary finished first with 441 votes, followed by Justin Fortune with 394, Tom Cronnelly with 336 and Dan Olsen with 255. O’Leary and Fortune advanced but those results could change.
Cronnelly hopes they do and he advances to the general election, but he said he feels for those in the Clerk and Recorder’s Office because “they obviously didn’t want this to happen.”
“For me personally, since I didn’t advance, I tossed my signs and closed my social media pages,” Cronnelly said. “It will be a mad scramble if the primary results change.”
Sajor-Joyce said voters “need to have confidence that we are doing the right thing.”
“I’ve had several phone calls from people who just are mad and I can’t do anything about that,” she said. “All I can do is the right thing.”
Ellsworth has appointed Republican Sens. Mike Cuffe of Eureaka, Theresa Manzella of Hamilton and Shelly Vance of Belgrade to the committee that will investigate the matter. He said he will work with minority leaders and appoint two Democrats.
The Republican members plan to be at the recount, his office said.
Mike Smith is a reporter at the Montana Standard with an emphasis on government and politics.
