Recount verifies council win

For nearly an hour, the names Norbie and Bender chimed as election judges Charlotte Nelson and Gloria Vreeland fed a voting machine and called out each vote.

“If I don’t start catching up here, I’m going to lose,” three-term city councilor Kevin Norbie joked as he tallied the votes by hand. After a recount of Tuesday’s 3rd District city council votes, he joked that he was one vote ahead at one point and thought about yelling “stop.” He didn’t.

One write-in candidate, 11 ballots with no city council votes cast and 352 votes later, the results of Tuesday night’s election were unchanged.

“Tell Warren congratulations,” Norbie told Bender’s sister and wife after the morning recount.

Warren Bender, chairman of the Douglas County Democratic Party, won the election for the nonpartisan seat Tuesday by eight votes, 180 to Norbie’s 172. Norbie sought the recount because the results were so close.

Bender, who was unable to attend today’s recount, was confident Wednesday the results would remain unchanged.

After observing the ballots fed into a voting machine this, Norbie said there were none that were even questionably marked and he was satisfied the voters’ choice was made.

“The sky looks a little clearer today,” he said as he walked out of the Government Center this morning.

Election results are still pending for Douglas County’s 6th District supervisory seat, where Steven Baker and Terry L. Hart were both running as a write-in candidates for the seat that previously had no contenders. While early results erroneously named Hart the winner, the two ended their race with a tie, which had yet to be decided this morning. County Clerk Sue Sandvick said one of the candidates may request a recount. Either candidate could make the request by Tuesday.

Tags: machine, judge, city, norbie