Issues with absentee ballot tabulation on election night led to inaccuracies in results reporting. As of approximately 1:30 p.m. Friday, new tabulations show Andy Marlowe won election to the post of Milner mayor over Richard Smith 110-101. The snafu also impacted the previous totals in the Milner city council race. The new tally in that race is Regina Stephens 117 Vicki Dickens-Morgan 94. ******************** NOTICE: This story and photo(s) are under copyright. They may not be republished or disseminated in any form or format – including social media – without explicit permission. ********************* Elections board member Bill Christopher reported a technician from Dominion, the company which provided voting equipment, apparently ran about 150 absentee ballots through a tabulation scanner twice after local tech Kimbra Dean went home sick. That technician was fired. A company executive arrived Friday to help and determined the tech had not cleaned the scanner as he should have after every 500 ballots which led to over votes. ”We noticed it when some of the popular judges got more votes than we had ballots. We should have caught it earlier,” Christopher said. Christopher said Smith has already asked for a hand recount. The county can only do a machine recount so Smith was referred to the Secretary of State’s office. There are two provisional ballots left to be counted within the Milner district – not enough to change the outcome, elections supervisor Anita Reid added.
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