Thomas officially wins auditor primary

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- Platte County Auditor Sandra Thomas on Wednesday officially was declared the winner of a close Republican state auditor's primary and immediately went on the offensive against her Democratic opponent.

Second-place Republican finisher Rep. Jack Jackson, meanwhile, said he plans to ask for a recount today. That would trigger a statewide ballot reverification that by law could take until Sept. 13 to complete.

State law allows the runner-up to request a recount when the winning margin is less than 1 percentage point. But candidates have to wait until the election results are officially certified.

According to the Aug. 8 primary election results certified Wednesday by Secretary of State Robin Carnahan, Thomas received 86,786 votes to Jackson's 84,942 -- a margin of 1,844 votes, or 0.6 percentage points, out of the total cast in the five-way Republican race.

A recount would be the first conducted statewide since 1994, Carnahan said.

Barring a reversal, Thomas will face the Democratic primary winner, Buchanan County Auditor Susan Montee, in the Nov. 7 general election. The contest also will feature Libertarian Party candidate Charles Baum and Progressive Party candidate Terry Bunker.

Jackson's campaign acknowledged Wednesday that a re-count reversal is unlikely.

"I'm not trying to delay the process, I just want to make sure that the final vote count is as accurate as possible," Jackson said. "I owe that to the tens of thousands of Missourians who put their trust in me when they voted on Election Day."

Campaign manager Paul Brown said Jackson plans to ask for a hand recount -- instead of a machine recount -- in certain southwest Missouri counties where Thomas had large victory margins. Thomas received about 50 percent of the vote in Barton County and about 48 percent in both Jasper and Newton counties.

Although a few votes remained to be counted, Thomas declared victory the morning after the primary and has been campaigning as the Republican auditor's nominee since then.

She and Montee already are sparring with each other. Earlier this week, Montee accused Thomas of incompetence because of a $195,000 discrepancy in Platte County's books that Thomas contends was actually attributable to the county treasurer and an outside auditing firm.

On Wednesday, Thomas' campaign accused Montee of not doing enough to look into allegations against Buchanan County Public Administrator Bonnie Sue Lawson, who resigned Monday.

County public administrators serve as the guardian and personal representative for certain minors, the mentally incompetent and some people with disabilities, ensuring their bills are paid and managing some of their assets.

State investigators seized items from Lawson's office last week after complaints from elderly residents that they never received their Social Security payments.

Thomas' campaign claimed Montee should have audited the county administrator's public funds and asked a court for an audit of the private funds the county administrator oversees. Thomas campaign consultant Jeff Roe suggested Montee was either complicit in the allegedly missing funds or incompetent in catching it.

Montee responded Wednesday that she had notified the court that had jurisdiction over the funds about complaints she received last December and was told an investigation already was under way. She said he has no jurisdiction to audit the private funds. The only public money the office receives is for operational expenses and an employee's salary, she said.

Lawson contributed $100 to Montee's campaign in December. But Montee said that money was refunded Tuesday after Lawson's resignation.