All three races, and possibly a few others, will be decided by the nearly 1,300 provisional ballots cast in Warren County that have yet to be counted. The Warren County Board of Elections will review, verify and then conduct a final official count of Tuesday’s general election on Nov. 23. There are about 85 provision votes to be counted in the city of Franklin, 197 in Franklin Twp. and 145 within the boundaries of the school district.
Brian Sleeth, county elections director, said Wednesday morning that there was a total of 1,277 provisional ballots to review and verify. He said that the number increased after the early voting provisional ballots were merged with the total of the 1,139 provisional ballots cast on Tuesday. He said voter turnout was 44.75 percent for the election.
Franklin is developing a reputation for its extremely close city council elections. Just four years ago, newcomer Matt Wilcher won a seat on council by four votes, edging out fellow candidate Douglas Greathouse, according to records from the county board of elections. On Tuesday, Wilcher and Greathouse trailed Fouts in the unofficial vote total by 231 and 557 votes, respectively.
“I’m pretty disappointed because it couldn’t have been any closer,” Fouts said Tuesday night of the one-vote margin. “But you never know what can happen.”
Fouts, a small business owner, is no stranger to close, tough losses. Two years ago, incumbent Councilman Carl Bray beat her by 40 votes to win the final of three open council seats.
Meanwhile, Faulkner, who is hanging onto a razor thin lead over Fouts for the fourth and final seat, is just 20 votes behind third-place finisher Councilman Todd Hall. Depending on how the provisional votes fall, there could be a shift in the outcome for Hall, Faulkner and Fouts.
Faulkner said he was surprise at the number of provisional ballots in play in Franklin and attributed it to the marijuana legalization issue that drew out many voters.
“I’m not going to comment until all of the votes are counted,” he said.
With 145 provisional ballots still to be counted in the Franklin school board race, even top vote-getter Robyn Donisi is completely safe, as just 84 votes separate her from Fleming and 109 from Raleigh.
Other Warren County races that could have different outcomes include Lebanon City Council, Mason school board and the mayor of Morrow.
In the Mason school board race, there are 269 provisional ballots in Warren County to verify and count and depending on that result, it could change outcome for the second open seat. With the unofficial totals from Butler and Warren counties, there is a 39-vote margin in the unofficial vote count between Erin Schmidt (4,481 votes) and Courtney Allen (4,442). It was unclear how many provisional ballots will be in play for this race in Butler County.
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