Oct. 4, 2005
King County completes recount of Sheriff's race
King County today completed a recount of the Sheriff's Race by counting a total of 18,761 ballots from 160 precincts.
Preliminary results indicate that the outcome has not changed with Schmidt leading Fuda by 62 votes. Reconciliation will continue through tomorrow morning and the final results will be certified at tomorrow's 2 p.m. Canvassing Board meeting at the King County Administration Building, 500 4th St., Seattle.
The difference between the two primary candidates vying for the second ballot position in the race triggered an automatic manual recount. Under a seldom used provision of the state's recount laws, the two candidates agreed to forgo the manual recount in favor of a machine recount of 10 randomly selected precincts in each of the 17 legislative districts within King County. Elections staff worked over the weekend hand sorting the ballots into legislative district and then the selected precincts.
As detailed in the agreement between candidates Greg Schmidt and Jim Fuda, Elections conducted a machine recount of the randomly selected precincts. Since the recount results did not change the outcome of the race, the recount is complete. Had the initial recount changed the outcome of the race, a random sampling of ten additional precincts per legislative district would have been recounted. After the second sampling if the outcome of the race was still reversed, the recount would have continued until all ballots were recounted.
"With the completion of this recount we're looking forward to the General Election and to implementing further improvements," said Dean Logan, Director of King County Records, Elections and Licensing. "We recognize the importance of demonstrating continuous improvement in order to continue to rebuild public trust in our elections process."
Because of the outcome of today's recount, there will be no need to count the next ten precincts and the Canvassing Board will meet tomorrow to certify the results of today's recount.
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