ASHLAND — Two races in Ashland County were so close in the General Election they automatically triggered a recount.
The Ashland County Board of Elections will host a recount for Perrysville Village Council and Sullivan Township at 4:30 p.m. on Nov. 23.
Perrysville Village Council, a race with candidates battling for four seats, will see a recount for candidates Steve Goines and Bob Zakutni. The candidates fell within the state’s 0.5% margin of error, with Goines receiving 61 votes and Zakutni earning 58.
The two top vote-getters were William Herman Jr. with 90 votes and David Artrip with 70.
Candidates Tab Bloom and Glen Goff Sr. triggered the recount in Sullivan Township. Bloom earned 186 votes compared to Goff’s 185. Ermal Alexander climbed to the top of the seven candidates with 218.
The board of elections unanimously certified the 2021 General Election results on Thursday.
Board of Elections president Andrew Keller said Ashland County had a pretty good turnout, with 26.75% turning out to vote — which equates to 9,270 of 34,651 registered voters casting ballots.
“That’s better than a majority of counties in Ohio,” Keller said.
Having two recounts was a bit of a surprise to Keller, who called it unusual to have a recount period — let alone two in one election.
In terms of how the recount will work, Keller said it will be “very simple and plain.”
“We’ll literally recount the ballots by hand,” he said, adding the process will be open to the public. He said the board of elections will select a Democrat and a Republican to do the counting.
“They’ll be assigned a certain lot of ballots to manually recount,” Keller said.
