Penn Township Treasurer candidate seeks recount

PENN TOWNSHIP — There’s been some clarity in the race for the Republican nomination for Penn Township Treasurer.

What looked like a tie last week was actually a one-point victory by the incumbent and the challenger has filed to have a recount done.

Cass County Clerk/Register Monica McMichael said the Aug. 6 election ended with incumbent Treasurer Paul Rutherford getting 281 votes and challenger Jodi Bucher getting 280. A person who was directed to the wrong township to vote said verbally that she would have voted for Bucher but that vote was never allowed to count.

McMichael said last week that a state law allows for a special mail-in election to be called in specific instances such as when a voter had been denied the right to vote. She said this week that the Michigan Bureau of Elections did further investigation and changed their recommendation to hold a special mail-in election.

The section of law in question is MCL 168.836(1)(b). It states that the number of electors who could not cast valid votes for the office because of the defect or mechanical malfunction has to be greater than the number of votes separating the candidates getting the most and the second most number of votes.

In this instance, the number of electors who couldn’t cast a valid vote was one and the number of votes separating the two candidates is one. McMichael said Bureau of Elections officials plan to ask the legislature to clear up the language so a situation like this one does not occur in the future.

McMichael said she has informed the state about the petition for a recount and they must clear the way for it to happen before she can set a time and place for the recount to take place. If the recount does end up with it being a tie, the winner would be determined by the drawing of a slip from a bowl with one slip saying elected.

Township resident Sheila Witous supports Bucher’s efforts to have a recount and hopes that it will be allowed to go through. She said she remains concerned that Rutherford, who is 80, will resign shortly after being elected to a new term and that the community will be disenfranchised by his replacement being appointed by the board rather than elected by the voters.

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