Left to right: Angela LeFevre, Sedona City Attorney Mike Goimarac and Sedona City Clerk Cherry Lawson stand outside Yavapai County Elections Services counting room prior to recount of May 20 mayoral election results.

By Tommy Acosta | Sedona-Verde Valley Times

Sedona, AZ - June 5, 2008 - A recount by Yavapai County Election Services of the ballots cast in the City of Sedona’s May 20, 2008 mayoral election affirmed Sedona Councilman Rob Adams’s victory over Sedona Mayor Pud Colquitt by a margin of four votes, with Councilman Adams garnering 1,970 votes to the incumbent’s 1,966.

Going into the recount, held Thursday June 5, Mr. Adams held a slim, two-vote lead over Mayor Colquitt. When the recount was over, approximately three hours after it began at 9 a.m., Adams gained one vote and the incumbent lost one vote, all but ensuring he will be Sedona’s next mayor for the next two years.

Sedona City Attorney Mike Goimarac, present at the recount along with Sedona residents Angela LeFevre, Terry Nash, Sedona City Clerk Cherry Lawson, a reporter for the Sedona-Verde Valley Times and two other Sedona residents, kept a careful watch and vigil through a glass window looking into the Board of Election’s sealed counting room, as the ballots were run through a special-optical machine and recounted.

When the recount was complete, a copy of the results was given to Mr. Goimarac who read them first, and then announced them to those present.

Officiating the recount were Yavapai County Recorder Ana Wayman Trujillo, Deputy Yavapai County Attorney Jack Fields and Yavapai County Elections Director Lynn Constebile.

No explanation was given for the one-vote disparity between the first election results and the recount.

The margin of error for the scanning machines is one half of one percent – 20 votes out of the 3,947 cast. Eleven of those votes were write-in votes.

Before the scanning of the actual ballots began, a test run of 40 ballots was conducted through the machine to test its accuracy. The machine scanned 40 out of 40 test-ballots correctly.

Ms. Trujillo explained specific procedures the Elections Department must go through in counting votes.

She said ballots with two candidates checked are not counted.

Voters who fill out a ballot, but fail to sign the envelope the ballots are delivered in, are given a second chance to vote prior to the election date if they can be contacted and come to City Hall to fill out a new ballot. Those contacted who respond are then given another opportunity to vote.

In this election, 31 voters failed to sign their names. Four voters filled out second ballots after being contacted. These votes were counted prior to the election deadline, which was the evening of May 20.

City Clerk Lawson said ballots deposited at City Hall prior to the election-date deadline are hand delivered by herself and the city’s Deputy Clerk to the Yavapai County Elections Department office in Prescott.

Elections Director Trujillo said the counting room is a “secure room” where ballots are kept and sealed after an election necessitating a recount. Security cameras record everything that happens in the counting room 24-hours a day. Personnel entering the counting room must use a card to get in and electronic records are kept of those who enter and the times they entered.

“People don’t realize how many checks and balances the ballots must go through,” she said. “They (the staff) work very hard. It’s a tough process. There are a lot of things we have to do. No one wants CNN knocking on their door because of something they did or did not do. We don’t want to make mistakes.”

The optical machines, manufactured by Diebold, are programmed and maintained in-house and have been in use since 1999, according to Ms. Trujillo.

She said ballots that come in where the notation for a candidate is semi-legible, are reviewed by a Duplicate Board to ensure the mark can be read by the machine.

Even ballots where voters wrote candidate names or messages are counted, if the oval check-box is marked. The machine only scans the oval check-box.

She said ballots received that are not checked, are not counted and voters submitting such ballots cannot be identified because they have no way of knowing who sent them.

The recount results will now be presented to Yavapai County Superior Court Judge Brutinel on Monday, June 9, who will make a determination whether to certify the results or not, and if so, will notify and have delivered to the Sedona city clerk a certificate of election for Mr. Adams. The city clerk will then deliver the certificate to Mr. Adams.

The city clerk will then officiate a ceremonial swearing in ceremony at City Hall, 10 a.m. Tuesday morning, June 10.