Manual recount ordered in state rep race

JACKSON, Mo. -- Missouri's top election official on Monday ordered a manual recount of over 6,000 Republican ballots in the 157th District state representative race in Cape Girardeau and Perry counties that could involve election judges scrutinizing hanging chads.

Missouri Secretary of State Matt Blunt issued the order at the request of Jackson resident Donna Lichtenegger, who lost by 24 votes to Scott Lipke of Jackson in the Aug. 6 primary election. The heated race involved four candidates seeking to succeed retiring state Rep. David Schwab, R-Jackson.

The winner faces Democrat Chuck Miller of rural Cape Girardeau County in the November election.

Local election officials say the hand recount of punch-card ballots -- which will be supervised by the state -- could be conducted later this week or next week. Lipke and Lichtenegger are both allowed to observe the recount or have witnesses present.

Over 1,600 ballots will have to be examined in Perry County and more than 4,500 in Cape Girardeau County, officials said.

"We will have to look at the holes," said Rodney Miller, Cape Girardeau County clerk, who added that the recount by his office could take two days.

Rules about chads

He said this recount shouldn't resemble the Florida recount in the 2000 presidential election because Missouri has rules that define which partially punched ballots count as votes and which don't.

It's a vote if the chad -- the piece of paper that is supposed to be punched out -- is hanging by no more than two corners, Miller said.

"I think everybody will be satisfied with the outcome," he said.

Lichtenegger, who asked for the recount in a letter faxed to Blunt's office, said her supporters urged her to seek a hand recount because of counting machine problems that surfaced when Cape Girardeau County votes were tabulated at the Administration Building in Jackson on election night.

'Better frame of mind'

"I don't think it will change the vote at all," Lichtenegger said, but "it will put everybody in a better frame of mind" by laying to rest any doubts people might have had.

Lichtenegger had until Wednesday to ask for a recount.

Whatever the outcome, Lichtenegger doesn't expect the manual recount to divide the local Republican Party. "I will always support whoever the Republican nominee is. That is just part of party politics," she said.

Lichtenegger said any other candidate who lost such a close election would have done the same thing.

Lipke had little to say about the recount. He said he's already won one recount in Cape Girardeau County.

"I am the Republican nominee, and I look forward to the general election," he said.

The Cape Girardeau County Republican punch-card ballots were run through a borrowed machine the day after the election. Miller decided on that recount just as a precaution. The recount gave additional votes to Lichtenegger, but not enough to change the outcome.

Districtwide, Lipke ended up with 1,802 votes to 1,778 for Lichtenegger. But in Cape Girardeau County, Lipke won by 239 votes. No counting problems surfaced in Perry County, and ballots there weren't recounted the day after the election.

Entitled to automatic count

Because Lichtenegger lost the race by less than 1 percent of the vote, she was entitled to an automatic recount of all the Republican ballots cast in the district.

Officials with the secretary of state's office said the automatic recount typically involves just rerunning ballots through the counting machines.

Blunt's staff questioned whether Lichtenegger would have to petition a circuit court judge for a manual recount. "Normally, that order has to come from the courts," said Gayla Vandelicht, co-director of elections for the secretary of state's office.

In the end, Blunt decided to order the hand recount because of the election-night problems with Cape Girardeau County's two ballot-counting machines, Vandelicht said.

Both Miller and Perry County Clerk Randy Taylor said they weren't opposed to counting the ballots by hand.

"We just want to get it behind us," said Taylor.

mbliss@semissourian.com

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