After an all-day historic recount Saturday by the Daviess County Clerk’s Office, a tie was declared in the 13th District, with 6,323 votes each. Democrat Jim Glenn won the election in November by one vote, but Republican DJ Johnson later contested the decision, which was sent to the House of Representatives who requested the recount in January.
Chief Deputy Clerk Richard House said the Daviess County Board of Elections will send their results to the House committee, but he is not sure what will happen after that.
“We’ve done our jobs,” House said.
Each ballot from the 13th District was recounted four times by staff members of the clerk’s office. During that tabulation, counters found that Jim Glenn received three votes that were not originally granted to him in November’s general election, giving him a four-vote advantage early Saturday.
Johnson’s attorneys, who were present for the recount, objected to one of those ballots. The ballot in question had a line drawn through the straight Republican voting box, but the voter selected candidates throughout the ballot without voting for a 13th District candidate. The clerk staff did not count this vote for either candidate, but after Johnson’s attorney’s brought it to the attention of County Attorney Claud Porter, the ballot was finally determined to count for DJ Johnson.
House said that according to the Kentucky Administrative Regulations, a line through a box must count, meaning the ballot in question must be considered a straight Republican vote.
With a two-vote lead for Glenn, the board of elections analyzed the 17 rejected absentee ballots. Of those 17 ballots, 12 were determined to be from precincts in the 13th District. Board members rejected seven of those absentee ballots for lack of signature or no inner envelope.
Five absentee ballots were opened to be considered in the recount. Those ballots were originally rejected for signatures that didn’t match or signatures in the wrong location on the envelope. After consulting the election regulations and Porter, the board decided to allow the five ballots, which resulted in one spoiled ballot without a vote for either candidate, one vote for Glenn and three votes for Johnson.
Johnson, who remained at the county’s election warehouse for the entire recount, said he is not sure what emotion he feels after the end result was a tie.
“I thought we would be at the end of it, but we’re not,” Johnson said. “This is literally groundbreaking. The clerk’s office did a very professional job. We’re just not done yet.”
Jim Glenn was not present for the final decision Saturday, but Owensboro Times was able to reach him for comment.
“I still think I’m the winner,” Glenn said. “I won by one vote. I won the election by the standard election process.”
Johnson said he is pleased that the recount process allowed votes to be counted that should have been.
“This points out that it’s worth it,” Johnson said.
Officials are not sure of the next step in the election contest. Johnson said he assumes at some point there will be a coin toss, but could not officially confirm that resolution. The House will be back in session Tuesday, Johnson said, and he expects to hear if the committee accepts the board of elections recount and how a winner will be determined.
Editor’s note: This story has been corrected. The original post indicated that a ballot in question that had a line drawn through the straight Republican voting box also had a vote for Jim Glenn and the board of elections decided to count the vote for Republican candidate DJ Johnson. The ballot in question did have a line drawn through the straight Republican voting box. The voter selected candidates throughout the ballot, however did not vote for a 13th District candidate. The clerk staff originally did not count this vote for either candidate during the recount, but after Johnson’s attorney’s brought it to the attention of County Attorney Claud Porter, the ballot was finally determined to count for DJ Johnson.
