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Recount complete

Brumm comes up short in bid for November city commission ballot

Election officials begin the recount process for ballots cast in the Aug. 6 Marquette City Commission primary election at the Marquette County Courthouse Thursday morning. The recount of all Marquette city precincts was requested by candidate Margaret Brumm, who was around 20 votes short of becoming one of the four candidates to move on to the November general election to the commission. (Journal photo by Cecilia Brown)

MARQUETTE — After the recount of the Marquette City Commission primary election ballots requested by candidate Margaret Brumm, candidates Evan Bonsall, Andrew Lorinser, Sally R. Davis and Nina van den Ende remain the top four vote-getters in the Aug. 6 election.

Results remained largely unchanged in the recount, which was held in the Marquette County Courthouse’s Probate Courtroom from 9 a.m. to 3:45 p.m. Thursday under the authority of the Marquette County Board of Canvassers. According to the recount tallies, the only changes were one less vote each for Bonsall and van den Ende, with the candidates officially receiving 1,737 and 566 votes, respectively.

The original official statement of votes indicated Bonsall, Lorinser, Davis and van den Ende received 1,738, 962, 817 and 567 votes, respectively. According to the initial tally, as well as Thursday’s official recount results, Brumm remains the candidate with the fifth-most votes — 546, falling behind van den Ende by 20 votes.

Brumm said in an email that all officials involved in the election and recount “performed their required tasks professionally.”

“My faith in the election process and the integrity of the voting booth in the city of Marquette has been renewed,” she said. “The results of the recount are that I missed being on the ballot for the general election by (20) votes. I have decided that I am going to continue as a write-in candidate for the Marquette City Commission. The general election date is (Nov. 5). As the fifth-place finisher in a four-person race, I have no where to go but up.”

Margaret Brumm

Brumm asked for a recount, she said previously, as preliminary tallies released in the early hours of Aug. 7 indicated she was the candidate with the fourth-most votes and qualified for the general election. However, unofficial results posted later that morning, as well as results officially verified by the Marquette County Board of Canvassers the afternoon of Aug. 7, indicated Brumm missed qualifying for the general election by 21 votes.

“I’m requesting a recount because of A) the change between the first and second set of results; B) the fact that only 21 votes separate me from the fourth place candidate; and C) to verify the integrity of the vote counting process after several people asked me, ‘What happened?'” Brumm said in an Aug. 7 email.

Brumm paid an amount of $25 for each of the city’s seven voting precincts, as well as its two absentee ballot precincts — as the number of votes separating her from van den Ende was less than 50 votes, Marquette County Clerk Linda Talsma said previously.

The recount was held with the oversight of the Marquette County Board of Canvassers and performed by a recount team of six individuals, three who were Democrats and three who were Republicans. Ballots from the city’s seven precincts, as well as two absentee ballot precincts, were recounted.

The team began by ensuring that the seal on the ballot boxes matched the seal of record, and physically hand counting the ballots within the boxes to ensure correct number of ballots were present for each precinct. Then, the ballots were electronically recounted by the ballot tabulation program used in the election.

The recount was open to the public and the Marquette County Clerk’s Office was required to notify opposing candidates of the recount within 24 hours of receiving the petition, Talsma said previously.

Cecilia Brown can be reached at 906-228-2500, ext. 248. Her email address is cbrown@miningjournal.net.

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