Recount planned in Baker County Board of Commissioner race

Published 2:00 pm Friday, June 10, 2022

BAKER COUNTY — The race for a position on the Baker County Board of Commissioners remains so close that County Clerk Stefanie Kirby is preparing to do a hand recount of more than 5,000 ballots.

But regardless of the outcome, the two candidates — Christina Witham and Kody Justus — will both advance to a runoff in the Nov. 8 general election.

They are vying for Position 2, one of two part-time spots on the three-member board of commissioners.

According to Oregon election law, if no candidate in a contested race gets more than 50% of the votes cast, then the top two advance to the general election. That standard also applies in races, like this one, with just two candidates.

In preliminary results from the county clerk’s office on May 17, the day of the primary election, Justus had a three-vote lead, 2,485 votes to Witham’s 2,482.

The reason Justus doesn’t have at least 50% of the votes, even with his slim lead, is there were about 50 write-in votes, which constitutes about 1% of the total votes cast. That means Justus and Witham are dividing 99% of the votes, and with such a close race, neither has quite reached that 50% plus one threshold needed to avoid a runoff in November.

The preliminary totals in the commissioner race didn’t include ballots that were postmarked on May 17 but hadn’t arrived at the Clerk’s office that day.

Kirby said her office received 61 postmarked votes within seven calendar days after the election, which made them eligible. This was the first Oregon election in which those postmarked ballots are counted if they’re received within seven days.

Kirby said there also were 15 other ballots counted. In some cases the voter had left the ballot in a drop box in a different county, which is allowed, and others either lacked a signature or the signature didn’t match the one the clerk’s office had on record for that voters.

Those are known as “challenged” ballots, and voters had until June 7 to confirm that they filled out those ballots.

After tallying the 76 ballots, the Witham-Justus race was even closer, but Witham, who previously trailed by three votes, had a lead of two votes, 2,518 to Justus’ 2,516, Kirby said.

But as was the case on May 17, neither Witham nor Justus has more than 50% of the total votes cast, so both will advance to the Nov. 8 general election, Kirby said.