By Kimberly Gasuras
The results are in from a requested recount of votes from the Bucyrus City Council presidential race and incumbent Garnet “Sis” Love remains the winner of the election.
Kurt Fankhauser who lost the race to Love by 29 votes on Nov. 7 made the request for the recount.
Fankhauser paid $60 per precinct to force the recount. With nine precincts of votes to count, including votes from 37 machines, paper ballots and absentee ballots, he paid a total of $540.
The staff and extra workers at the Crawford County Board of Elections worked into the evening on Monday to finish a recount that began at 9 a.m. on Friday.
Ruth Leuthold, director of the board of elections, said the process was a tedious one with 48 canisters of votes to record. While the staff did not work over the weekend, the counted votes all day on Friday and began again Monday at 9 a.m.
“We finished last night at around 6:45 p.m.,” Leuthold said.
Fankhauser was not present at the board of elections when the final tally was released but had an observer there who was keeping him updated.
Fankhauser said he wants to thank the people that voted for him and in addition, wants to thank the board of elections for working so hard on the recount.
“I think the re-count was still necessary if only to restore faith in the voting process,” Fankhauser said. “At least now when people go to vote on Election Day they know that every vote is being counted.”
Love created a Facebook post late Monday evening thanking everyone for his or her support.
“Thank you to all who supported me. The recount is in and all the numbers remained the same, Sis 1134 opponent 1105,” she said in the post. “I will continue to work to keep Bucyrus moving forward and keeping all expenses as low as possible.”
Leuthold said she recalls one other requested recount several years ago, but the fee schedule was different than it currently is.
The board also completed an official recount for the Bucyrus City Council-at-Large position. While Kevin Myers and Mark Makeever were already declared winners, the results were close when it came to the third seat, qualifying for an automatic recount.
“The results from that race remained the same also,” Leuthold said.
Incumbent Dan Wirebaugh remains the winner of the seat with a total of 907 votes to newcomer Jeff Norman’s 900 votes.
