(Photo by Michelle Dillon) Washington County Board of Election member Dennis Sipe, center, holds a box Nov. 12 as Board of Election Member Khadine Ritter, left, randomly chooses a precinct for the election audit, while Washington County Board of Elections Director Mandi Amos, right, watches. The board held the audit and conducted a recount for a New Matamoras Sunday liquor sales question Wednesday.

This week the Washington County Board of Elections conducted a recount for a New Matamoras Sunday alcohol sales ballot question that resulted in it passing by one vote and concluded its audit of the Nov. 5 general election.

On Wednesday the board conducted a recount for a local liquor option on the ballot that asked if Par Mar Store 4, located at 1300 State Route 7, New Matamoras, could sell wine and mixed beverages on Sunday, according to a board media release.

The question had received a tie vote of 156-156, according to unofficial results on Nov. 5, and then during the board’s official canvass of the votes Nov. 12 that included provisional and absentee ballots, the final vote count was 157 yes votes, or 50.16% and 156 no votes, or 49.85%. The results from the canvass triggered an automatic recount, which is required when the results of a vote for an issue or candidate are less than 0.5% (one half of one percent) difference.

After the recount of votes was conducted by hand, “the results stayed the same,” Washington County Board of Elections Director Mandi Amos said.

The board also concluded its required audit of the votes Wednesday, a process that took staff and additional poll workers four full days to complete, according to the release.

The staff counted by hand all the votes that had been received and counted for the races for president, U.S. senate, and the county recorder for four randomly selected precincts, the release said, and the votes had to total 5% of the 31,376 ballots cast in the 2024 general elections, or 1,569 votes.

The precincts were chosen Nov. 12 by board of election members picking the precincts randomly out of a box and ended up being Belpre 1A, Marietta 2A, Marietta 4C and Independence. The release said the votes cast in these precincts totaled 1,883 ballots.

“The audit showed the results after the official canvas in those precincts were the same after the staff counted the ballots … this proves the system the board uses to tally votes is accurate and much less time consuming and free of errors than in hand counting alone,” Amos said in the release.

Amos said the board of elections didn’t have any problems during the election and they were very happy with the way everything went.

“Everything we felt went very smoothly,” she said.

The board of elections thanked the staff and poll workers in the release for “a very successful general election.”

Amos also said she was happy people came out to vote. Voter turnout for the 2024 general election in Washington County was 73%, according to Amos, which is a little less than the turnout for the 2020 general election, which was 75%.