Sheriff race depends on provisional, absentee ballots

The Washington County Sheriff Republican primary race will be decided by provisional and absentee ballots.

On Tuesday night the unofficial election results from the Washington County Board of Elections showed 10,879 votes were cast, with Washington County Sheriff's Deputy Mark Warden receiving 5,450 votes or 50.10% of the votes and former Washington County Jail Administrator Greg Nohe receiving 5,429 votes or 49.90% of the votes.

That is a difference of 21 votes or 0.20% and because of this the race was too close to call. It will be decided by provisional and absentee ballots.

There are no Democratic candidates in the primary race for sheriff, so whoever is declared the official winner of the Republican primary will become the new Washington County Sheriff after they participate in the November general election, according to Washington County Board of Elections Director Mandy Amos.

Amos said there are 92 provisional ballots. These are ballots that have not been processed yet because they have an issue like a voter hasn't updated their address or name with the Board of Elections or the voter went to their polling location without the required form of ID or a voter is registered to vote in one county and moved and didn't update their voter registration.

Board of elections staff will look at the provisional ballots to make sure the voters who cast the ballots are registered and that they did not vote some other way in the elections and will give the information to the four-member bipartisan Board of Elections who will make the final decision on which provisional ballots can be counted.

Amos said there are 61 absentee ballots that were mailed to voters and have not been received and must be postmarked by March 18 and received by March 23 to be counted and there are 14 absentee ballots that have already been received but have been set aside due to issues with the identification envelope voters are required to include with their ballot.

She said these issues include things such as voters forgetting to put their ID number or social security number on the envelope or transposing numbers on the envelope and the envelopes must be corrected and returned to the Board of Elections by March 23 for the ballot to be counted.

According to Amos the only other race as close as the Republican primary sheriff's race is for the member of the county central Democrat committee for Waterford A precinct. Elizabeth Klintworth received 18 votes or 46.15% of the vote and John Stephan received 15 votes or 38.46%, a difference of 3 votes. The other candidate Norman Pritchard came in a distant third with 6 votes or 15.38% of the vote.

Amos said the Board of Elections will decide on absentee and provisional ballots and if they can be counted during the official vote canvass and that it was set for March 27, but as the most populous county in the 94th Ohio House District, Washington County must do their canvass after the two lesser populated counties in the district, Meigs and Athens counties, perform their canvasses. Part of Athens County, excluding the city of Athens, is in the 94th Ohio House District.

According to the Athens County Board of Elections website, the official canvass for primary election votes is set for 9 a.m. on March 29. The Meigs County Board of Elections does not have its official canvass date listed on its website and calls requesting the information had not been returned by press time. The Ohio Secretary of State website says that county boards of election must start their official vote canvass no later than April 3 and must complete them no later than April 9.

Once the canvas is complete in Washington County, it is possible there might be a recount for the Sheriff's Republican primary race. According to the Ohio Revised Code, if the number of votes for the winning candidate in an election is less than 0.5% more than the number of voters for the losing candidate, an automatic recount is triggered and a candidate in a primary election who is not declared the winner may request a recount. Nohe confirmed Tuesday night that he would request a recount if the voter margin between him and Warden is still close after provisional ballots are counted.