BY TREVOR CALERO
Daily Staff Reporter
Published September 10, 2008
A Tuesday morning recount in the Ann Arbor City Council Ward 5 Democratic primary race showed minimal changes in the voting numbers.
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Vivienne Armentrout, who lost to local business owner Carsten Hohnke by 58 votes in the August election, filed for a recount shortly after losing, saying some supporters told her that certain machines weren’t running properly on Election Day.
“On election night, I received a lot of reports from the supporters that I had that were picking up the results at the polls,” she said. “The machines were broke down, the machine was eating the ballots, they couldn’t get the ballots to go through the machine.”
Ward 5 includes most of downtown Ann Arbor including the area east of Main Street between Liberty and Madison Streets.
According to the original tally, Armentrout received 1,552 votes in the primary while her opponent, Hohnke, had 1,610.
After the recount, Armentrout had 1,555 votes and Hohnke had 1,608 votes, lowering the difference in votes from 58 to 53.
Derrick Jackson, director of elections for the County Clerk, said the results of the recount were not unexpected.
“It is pretty normal to see what we’ve seen,” he said. “I don’t think it’s a bad thing.”
Jackson said the discrepancy resulted from ink smudges on a handful of ballots, which caused the machines to read them incorrectly.
Upon hearing the new numbers, Armentrout said she was satisfied with the results.
“Data is data,” she said.
Though the outcome didn't change, Armentrout said she thought the recount was a good way to test the electoral system.
“There’s a lot of concern and mistrust in electronic voting systems in our country,” she said. “It validated that our election system is trustworthy.”
Hohnke said he was also satisfied with the results.
“I think it says again that the city and County Clerk’s office do a remarkable job,” he said.
Hohnke will replace incumbent Chris Easthope, who gave up his seat on the council to run for 15th District Court judge. Hohnke, a University alum, was endorsed by Mayor John Hieftje.
He will take office in January.
