The committee then voted on doing a full recount by hand of the governor, lieutenant governor and U.S. senator elections in the general election on Nov. 8.
According to Reichert, the county audits every election held, by choice.
Normally, the county will randomly select two reporting units in the county and then hand-count the ballots in two of the races in the election and compare the results with the voting machine tabulations.
“What we are suggesting doing for the 2022 general election is hand-counting the entire county as a part of an audit doing the top state race and the top federal race, which would be governor, lieutenant governor and then the U.S. Senate race, and hand-counting all of those,” said Reichert.
According to Reichert, the expense of the recount is up to $50,000, and would be paid for by the county and not the individual municipalities. The funding would come out of the strategic priority fund.
She added that she doesn’t believe the recount would cost the full $50,000, as in 2016 the full recount cost roughly $36,000.
“Here again, I think we need to commend the clerk’s office for taking a step forward on this,” said Merry. “Just another effort to reassure the voters of Washington County that we’re trying to stay ahead of any potential fraud.”
He added that it is important to show that Washington County is doing everything they can to ensure voter integrity.
“We take voter integrity, election integrity, seriously,” added County Supervisor Jodi Schulteis.
The committee voted unanimously to approve the use of up to $50,000 in strategic priority funds to be used for a full recount of the governor, lieutenant governor and U.S. Senate races by hand.