Jervah new Marquette trustee following recount, card draw

The outcome of one Hamilton County General Election race has finally been determined, more than two weeks after election day. An official recount of votes in Precinct 8, which is the precinct for the village of Marquette, was held on Thursday at 9 a.m. at the County Clerk’s office in hopes of breaking a tie between incumbent board of trustees chair Richard Archer and Jerry Jervah. The two were among seven candidates running for two open seats on the board in the Nov. 5 election. Results posted on election night showed the two candidates had each received 43 of the 214 votes cast in that election and thus were tied at 18.22 percent of the vote.
County Clerk Jill DeMers said the two candidates were in attendance for the recount, as well as the canvassing board and County Sheriff Jeromy McCoy. She said the ballots were run through the vote-counting machine again showing that the original count had been accurate and that Archer and Jervah were still deadlocked. 
According to state statute 32-1122, in the case of a tie vote, the tie can be broken by drawing the name of the winner from a container (as in a lottery), “a game of chance,” by using a deck of cards and allowing the two candidates to draw for the high card, or a coin toss. DeMers decided on the card method, so she divided out the two through king of hearts from a deck and allowed the two candidates to draw from among those 12 cards. Archer drew the two but Jervah drew the jack to become the winner. 
The other winner of a seat on the village board was newcomer Vincent White. He was the top vote-getter with 45 votes for 19.07 percent of the votes cast. Other results included William Gfeller, eight votes, 3.39 percent;  Kenny Aerni, 24 votes, 10.17 percent; Dennis Saum (incumbent), 14 votes, 5.93 percent; and Angela Pierce, 35 votes, 14.83 percent. 
“It goes to show that every vote counts in these local races,” DeMers remarked following the recount which she said took about an hour. 
Just because the election is now over and results have been certified to the Secretary of State’s office, DeMers said that doesn’t mean her office won’t still be busy with election business for the next several weeks. One of the tasks for her has been to certify the results of elections in which her office cooperates with several other surrounding counties. For instance, Hamilton County voters vote in school board elections for Central City, High Plains Community Schools and the Doniphan-Trumbull School District. 
DeMers also said there is quite a bit of work left for election clerk Lynelle Johnson to do. Once everything balances from the election, DeMers said Johnson will need to scan in the signatures from the more than 1,000 ballots cast, so that in future elections there will be multiple signatures from each voter to compare against. She said changes in voter registration details will also need to be updated, a task which is made bigger by the 81 percent voter turnout in this election. In all, 5,641 ballots were cast in the county out of a total of 6,963 registered voters.