Goldner vs. Schmidt Recount Took Place Monday, December 17
Results may take a little longer
Result: Goldner wins by 12 votes. It is finished.
The process to find the winner of Fort Wayne’s 2nd District City Council race began this morning at the City-County Building in the hallway outside the Allen County Election Board Office where ballots were checked. At the same time, the recount of the voting machines took place north of Fort Wayne Voting Machine Storage Facility off Carroll Road. The goal of the recount is to see if Karen Goldner's 13 vote lead over nine-term incumbent City Councilman Don Schmidt (R) will hold. The final results, unless the count is stopped because it is obvious that there is no significant difference in outcome, will happen as challenged ballots are reconsidered by the Recount Commission on Tuesday.
It is a more complicated process than one might expect because of the potential complications of ballot appearance, signatures on the back and, most importantly, voter intent are all taken into consideration. It is important to note that during this process, there was no way to know who cast any of the votes as voters cannot be connected to ballots.
Ballots had been kept locked, in the Allen County Election Board Office and the voting machines were held in the Voting Machine Storage Facility off Carroll Road. At that facility, Andrew Downs was the Democratic Member, Mitch Harper was the Republican Member, John Linder, Director of Machine Technicians and Pam Finlayson, Director of Recount took part in the machine recount.
Jeanne Nicolet, Assistant Director of Elections for Allen County was in charge of the paper ballot part of the recount. There were three tables for the recount audit teams with two counters and two challengers at each table and both Republicans and Democrats represented.
As of 10:00 am on Monday when the ballot recount ended there had been 13 challenges, the unofficial feeling was that while some were serious, most were not going to be overturned. While we have no information of what those who checked the machines found, it appears more than likely that Karen Goldner will remain the winner. However, the Recount Commission will reconvene on Tuesday, December 18 at 8:00 am to make final determinations concerning all disputed ballots. Only then will we know for sure.
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After talking to one participant in this process, I realized that they were so totally willing to make the right choices.
We all would do well to express our appreciation to their dedication to making voter's choices count.