Trending
A long day at the Marshall County Courthouse ended with no change in the results of Moundsville's Nov. 8 municipal election.
A manual recount of the city's at-large council race took several hours, but yielded no change from the unofficial election night results.
Carl Boso called for the recount after losing by 10 votes to incumbent David Haynes according to initial results, saying he did not fully trust the results given by the voting machines.
A manual recount of Moundsville's nine voting precincts, undertaken Thursday by a dozen poll workers, but closed the gap by two votes, leaving Haynes in the lead by eight votes.
The hand count resulted in Boso gaining five votes and and Haynes gaining three.
That tally resulted in a final, eight-vote margin of 932 votes for Haynes to Boso's 924.
Marshall County Clerk Jan Pest said the long day of counting by hand was the result of a significant amount of effort by the volunteers.
"Sitting there watching people recount (the election night vote), you'll see them say, 'No, no, erase that,' and someone will have canceled a vote and you've already marked it -- they do that," she said.
"It was an eye-opener for both David and Carl. The hand count is just human error. You'll mark the wrong candidate, or with (Councilman Mark Simms) and Haynes, their names sound so similar.
"That last couple hours, I could see, people were getting tired. It's intense work."
Boso and Haynes were both present to watch the recount take place, as were Marshall County commissioners, Pest and other county employees.
Before the recount, Boso said elections in the past change after a recount, and asked for a hand count without the voting machines.
Haynes thanked residents for giving him a vote of confidence by re-electing him.