The march toward a hearing in Christian Circuit Court appears to be continuing in the contested Republican primary election for Hopkinsville City Council in Ward 7 that initially went to Doug Wilcox by a single vote over Mark Graham.
As previously reported, the Christian County Clerk’s Office confirmed at a Board of Elections meeting last week that 109 votes were counted in the final tally that were cast by people who actually live in Ward 8. Election officials say the problem was due to an issue with how Tenex programmed software to direct poll workers at the G104 precinct to hand out ballots to voters. That precinct is split between Wards 7 and 8, but the software was directing every voter to receive the Ward 7 ballot for several hours.
A complaint was filed with the Attorney General’s Office and it issued an opinion Monday saying most future action will have to occur in some fashion in circuit court.
Graham filed a petition Friday seeking a manual recount of the votes and for all papers, ballots and other materials from the primary to be turned over to circuit court.
Assistant Christian County Attorney Lincoln Foster says the County Clerk’s Office filed its own petition for a recount Monday and asked for it to be consolidated with Graham’s. Wilcox was given seven days to respond to Graham’s initial filing, so Foster says a hearing isn’t likely to happen in circuit court any earlier than next week.
Foster doesn’t expect the initial recount to change the numbers or to decide the outcome, but it’s outlined as one of the next necessary steps established by the Attorney General’s Office to get to eventual resolution of the matter in court.
The Christian County Board of Elections is set to meet in special session at 10 a.m. Thursday at the courthouse, when they will enter into closed session to discuss pending litigation.
Ultimately, it appears that however the primary is resolved will be decided in the courtroom of Circuit Judge John Atkins.
It’s possible the primary could be re-voted with a blank slate, new ballots could be sent by mail to every voter who cast a proper ballot in the primary, or some other solution could be decided.