Pancake"s coin-flip win holds up in recount; chads have effect
By Nick Claussen
April 7, 2008
If one Athens County Democrat had completely filled in the oval on his or her ballot in the race for Athens County commissioner, the local Democratic Party would have a different nominee today.
Democrats Jim Pancake and Charlie Adkins tied for first place in the seven-person race during the official count of the March 4 primary. On Saturday, Pancake and Adkins tied again during the official recount, even though the commissioners’ race changed by a total of six votes. Previously, Pancake had been declared the winner after a coin toss following the official count, pending the recount, and he remains the winner, even though he is still tied with Adkins.
In the official count of the race, Adkins and Jim Pancake each received 2,854 votes.
During the Saturday recount, they each received 2,853 votes, according to Debbie Quivey, director of the Athens County Board of Elections.
“They tied again,” Quivey said. “Each one of them lost one vote to an undervote.” Two other candidates in the commissioners’ race lost one vote to an undervote, while one candidate lost two votes, she said.
“What are the chances?” Quivey said about Pancake and Adkins still ending up tied after the race changed by six votes. “It’s just one of those things.”
The board staff studied the ballots in the precincts where Adkins and Pancake received their undervotes, and found that one ballot had a line through the oval that was supposed to be filled in, while another had an “x” in the oval.
“On Election Day, the machine picked them up,” Quivey said. When the votes were counted again during the official recount on machines in the board office, though, the vote-counting machines did not register the votes, she said.
This means that if either the person who put an “x” in the oval or the person who put a line through the oval had completely filled in the oval, that vote would have been counted in the official recount and would have pushed either Adkins or Pancake ahead.
Those people did not fill in the ballots completely, though, so while their votes were counted on Election Day, they were not counted in the official recount.
Even though the vote totals changed in the official recount, because Pancake and Adkins are still tied, the coin toss from the official count stands and Pancake is still considered the winner of the race, Quivey said.
Pancake, a former York Township trustee and the 2002 Democratic nominee for the Ohio House of Representatives’ 92nd District (he lost to Republican Jimmy Stewart in the general election), will now face off in the general election against Republican Larry Payne, a former Albany mayor and the current director of member services for the Athens Area Chamber of Commerce.
Payne issued a press release Sunday congratulating Pancake on his nomination and complimenting Adkins for running a positive campaign. He also said in the release that he felt badly for both candidates for having to wait more than a month to find out who the official nominee would be. He added that he plans to focus his campaign on the issues and his experience.
“I hope the voters will study our backgrounds and will see that my experience in economic development, social issues, government experience and knowledge of Athens County gives me the best preparation to be a county commissioner,” Payne said in the release. “I will bring a level- headed, balanced, fair and common-sense approach to the office.”
The race for the Republican Central Committee representative from Glouster 1 was also tied after the official count, and it remained tied after the official recount, Quivey said. In this race, Fred Cavey and Ralph Coey tied, but Cavey won the coin toss after the official count so he wins the seat.
The board only did recounts for these two races on Saturday, but also held an audit of its election system, recounting all of the ballots in the Republican and Democratic parties’ presidential primaries and then checking them against the totals. This audit was voluntary, and because the board held it, the process will save $850 in registration fees and other costs for attending state board of elections conventions and seminars, Quivey said.
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