Recount requested by Ottawa Impact member confirms he lost his GOP primary

Ottawa County administration building | Anna Gustafson

A recount Thursday reaffirmed the outcome of an Ottawa County Commission district’s results from the August primary.

Ottawa County Commissioner Roger Belknap filed a request with the Ottawa County Clerk’s Office on Aug. 19 that asserted he believed “fraud or errors were committed” by precinct election inspectors during the voting process.

Belknap, who successfully unseated former District 9 Commissioner Phil Kuyers in 2022 by just 307 votes, this time lost a rematch against Kuyers in the 2024 Republican primary by more than 1,000 votes (4,070-2,997).

Ottawa Impact commissioner requests recount after losing his GOP primary by 16 points

Belknap said his reason for requesting the recount was that he suspected erroneous results.

“My petition for recount is based upon two factors,” Belknap wrote in the complaint. “Reported results indicating my campaign received more votes than my opponent have been sent to me (screen shots) with all precincts being reported in local media.”

Belknap was referencing Grand Rapids-based television station WZZM-13’s incorrect reporting the night of Aug. 6 that erroneously inverted his vote totals with opponent Phil Kuyers’ before it was corrected the next day.

WZZM did not respond to a request for comment on the error, but told Grand Rapids-based station FOX-17 that “human error” played a part and “as soon as the mistake was realized, correct vote totals were updated.”

Belknap, a first-time commissioner, was part of a slate of Ottawa Impact candidates in 2022 who primaried longtime traditional Republicans over frustrations with the handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In his recount request, Belknap also pointed to “complications and outages of online reporting being ‘down,’” referring to the county clerk’s website seeing unusually high traffic, which caused load times to stall as results were being reported on election night.

“This petition comes from me, the candidate, at the behest of my campaign, volunteers, party delegates and concerned citizens that all due diligence is taken to confirm results,” Belknap wrote.

Ottawa County Clerk Justin Roebuck said Aug. 21 that the process would take one to two days and was expected to cost about $6,000 to complete and would require about 30 people to review the 11 precincts in District 9 — which includes Grand Haven and Robinson townships as well as a small portion of Spring Lake Township — as well as early voting and absentee ballots.

Belknap submitted a deposit of $5,000 with his request Monday. The remainder of the costs for the recount would be covered by taxpayer funds.

On Friday, Roebuck said the cost would be between $6,000 and $7,000, with taxpayers covering the remaining costs. There were 22 counters present during the hours-long process as well as six election staffers.

Both Belknap and Kuyers also had their maximum allowed election observers present, bringing the overall total of people to 44.

“The result of this recount shows our community the high level of accuracy in our election equipment and the integrity of those on the frontlines of our process — our election workers,” Roebuck said Friday.

After the recount, Belknap’s vote total didn’t change, however, Kuyers’ vote total increased by five.

“Every single ballot container was sealed properly on Election Night, and the list of voters in every precinct matched exactly to the number of ballots. The change in vote totals represented a 0.0007% difference from election night totals,” Roebuck said. “I’m incredibly proud of our team and thankful that as we approach the Presidential Election in November, our voters can be confident that their voice will be heard and their ballots accurately counted!”

Kuyers will face Democrat Angela Stanford-Butler in the Nov. 6 general election.

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