OOPS! TIME FOR A RECOUNT

Oops.. false alarm.

A mis­take in count­ing some early votes in Defi­ance County has over­turned the out­come of Defi­ance City Hall’s 0.3-percent income tax request.

On Elec­tion Day the count was 1,430 votes for the tax and 1,445 against. How­ever, the final cer­ti­fied tally made Wednes­day by the county’s board of elec­tions has left the count at 1,644 votes for the tax and 1,616 against.

Appar­ently what hap­pened is that either on or right before Elec­tion Day, there were a small num­ber of pro­vi­sional bal­lots along with mil­i­tary and late absen­tee bal­lots still to be counted by the board of elec­tions on Nov. 20 — the day the board was sched­uled to meet to cer­tify the Nov. 5 results. Of those, 22 were accepted by the board of elec­tions Wednes­day morn­ing, and most of them would have had to go the city’s way for the tax to have passed.

How­ever, that all went out the win­dow when a mis­take was dis­cov­ered by the board of elec­tions…

373 bal­lots cast by peo­ple who voted early on a machine at the board of elec­tions office on East Sec­ond Street were not counted.