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Down to the write-ins

After death of Russell’s only mayoral candidate, election officials tally up over 100 write-in votes

Photo by Deb Gau Election workers from the city of Russell and Lyon County Auditor/Treasurer E.J. Moberg met Wednesday morning to look over write-in votes cast in the Russell mayoral race. Scans of each ballot marked with a write-in candidate were displayed on a computer screen for review.

MARSHALL — It was a situation nobody had anticipated, Russell City Clerk Marie Grant said. Roger Hook died on Monday, just a day before his position as mayor of Russell was up for re-election.

Hook, 61, was the only mayoral candidate on the ballot this year.

It was a shock that Hook was gone, Grant said. She said Russell community members also wondered what would happen in the election. Their response was to cast a total of 135 write-in votes for mayor, according to unofficial election results. Write-ins accounted for 85% of votes in the Russell mayoral race.

On Wednesday, Grant and a Russell election judge met with Lyon County Auditor/Treasurer E.J. Moberg as he tallied the write-in votes. Russell residents wrote in about 20 different candidates for mayor, but three top candidates emerged in a close race. Of the 135 write-in votes, current Russell City Council member Alan Martin received 39, Adam Burns received 37, and Trevor Carlson received 29.

Most of the write-in candidates received only one or a few votes each. After Carlson, the next highest vote total was for Matt Kerkaert, with five votes. Although city officials now have results for the mayoral race, it’s not yet certain what will happen next. Grant said she will be consulting with the Russell city attorney, as well as bringing the unofficial election results to the city council, which meets Monday night.

While ballots in Lyon County are scanned and counted electronically at polling places, tallying up write-in votes needs to be done by hand. Moberg and the observers from Russell looked at scans of each ballot with a write-in vote, and kept count of each name submitted. In a few cases, they had to consider the intent of the voter. In one example, a ballot that did not have a circle filled in next to the write-in candidate space, but did have a candidate’s name written in, appeared to have a clear intent to cast a write-in vote, Moberg said.

Taunton tallies write-ins

Russell wasn’t the only community in Lyon County that had a significant number of write-in votes on Tuesday. The city of Taunton didn’t have a candidate on the ballot for its mayoral race, so Moberg tallied up a total of 54 write-in votes on Wednesday. Of a dozen write-in candidates, current Taunton Mayor Mike Breyfogle had the highest number of votes, at 22. The next highest total was for Rusty Rhymer, at 14.

Taunton also had two city council seats up for election, but just one candidate on the ballot, Shannon Brewers. Brewers received 53 votes, but Moberg also tallied up a total of 42 write-in votes for 17 different candidates. Rhymer had the most write-in votes for council, at six votes. The next highest totals were for Scott Stefanson, at five votes, and for Ryan Buysse, Gene DeVos and David Breyfogle, who each received four votes.

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