While accepting he finished last in the 11-person race for property assessor, Democratic candidate Jeff McGee says he believes there were flaws in our election system after he received no votes in five precincts.
McGee claims friends and relatives are ready to issue sworn statements they did vote for him in those precincts, despite an election commission report that shows he did not get any votes there.
“There’s something fishy that went on and I’m not real comfortable with it,” McGee said after reviewing the election results. “I’m not so shocked about losing, it’s the low number and all those zeros that don’t make sense.”
McGee, who fell short in a run for county clerk several years ago, was making his second bid for office, this time for property assessor. However, he finished last in the Democratic Primary last week, getting a total of 64 votes.
Beth Martin won the primary with 1,439 votes.
Included in McGee’s vote total were five precincts including Centertown CIC, Centertown School, the courthouse, Fairview and Irving College where he received no votes. Fellow candidates Morford Bryant, Doyle Bratcher, Michael Hillis and Jacob Smith also had precincts in which they received no votes.
In all, the five candidates combined for 16 voteless precincts. McGee did not break double digits in any of the precincts, his biggest precinct being Eastside where he got seven votes. McGee said there are precincts in which he knows he had votes.
“I’m not foolish enough to believe everyone who says they are going to vote for me actually will vote for me,” McGee said. “But, there are some votes, three in particular at the courthouse, where they were as sure as my own vote and they are ready to swear they voted for me.”
McGee admits those votes would not help him in the race, but if there was a problem it could have affected someone like Randy England, who lost by 507 votes.
Election administrator Donna Smith said there are duplicate systems within the MicroVote machines used in Warren County which assure an accurate count. The numbers are also justified before the election becomes official later this month.
“If he would come up here, we could pull the tally sheets and do whatever he needs to make him feel better about the results,” Smith said, noting she has no reason to believe the results from the precincts are not accurate. Smith added the delay in announcing the returns election night was caused by getting a memory card to read properly and would have done nothing to change the results.
Smith said she plans to sift through the absentee votes, which are counted by hand and are listed separate from the precincts, to see if the votes McGee believes are missing could have been cast by some of the 178 absentee voters who cast ballots.
McGee said he is considering talking to the state election commission about his concerns, although the distance of his defeat would mean his efforts would not affect the outcome of the Democratic primary in which Beth Martin was named nominee for the general election in August.