JOPLIN, Mo. — A decision today in court over the vote total in the April Joplin City Council election. Our cameras were there when Judge Gayle Crane made the call.
The process is underway to recount the results of that April 5th ballot.
“I’d like to get it over with, move on.”Brian Evans, Council Candidate.
It’s been more than a month since Brian Evans lost his Joplin Council race by just 13 votes. His focus now is finding out if that total will change.
“It’s a machine recount. So it should be quick. It should be easy,” Evans said.
Jasper County Judge Gayle Crane ordered both Jasper County and Newton County to recount votes in the Joplin City Council race, using election machines for that total. Before that can happen, both counties will have to find election judges to monitor the recount, names Evans will have to sign off on.
“We are we are going to most likely hire six individuals, three Republicans and three Democrats that will come into our office in Carthage at the courthouse. And we will set up three machines and we will refeed all 13 precincts from the City of Joplin into the machines and just tally the votes and make sure that the votes are the same as they were election night,” said Charlie Davis, Jasper Co. Clerk.
Jasper County Clerk Charlie Davis is confident the numbers won’t change.
“One of the things that we want to stress is I have faith in our election systems. Explained the process to her and I think that really made her understand that the system works, process works,” he said.
“The main thing I am worried about regardless of win or lose, I just want to make sure that that the people are satisfied they have faith in the system because if if the people don’t have faith in the election process, then we’re in trouble,” said Evans.
Both Jasper County and Newton County officials expect the process to wrap up pretty quickly. They must submit names of the election judges by next Friday, but that’s expected well before the deadline.