Five votes separate Sooke's last council seat. Now every advance ballot gets recounted
Two mail-in ballots had checkmarks the scanner couldn't read, and the margin is thin enough that Sooke decided to count all 674 advance ballots again.
The final seat on Sooke's new council came down to five votes, and now the district is counting the advance ballots over again to make sure that margin holds.
The recount started at 10 a.m. Tuesday after a review of preliminary results flagged two of the 65 ballots cast by mail and at a special voting opportunity at Ayre Manor. On both, the circle beside a candidate's name was clearly checked but not fully filled in, so the scanner couldn't register the choice. The district says there's no evidence the tabulating equipment malfunctioned.
Preliminary results handed the Sooke First slate the mayor's chair and five of six council seats, with independent Katherine Strongwind rounding out the table. Elliott Lifton of Sooke First took the sixth seat by five votes over Sooke Together's Helen Ritts. If the recount flips it, Ritts would be the only Sooke Together voice on council.
Reached before the recount, Ritts said she feels she "dodged a bullet" in not getting elected. She said she only ran because she was worried about the Sooke First sweep and the slate's close ties to developers.
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