Amarillo City Council certifies June 7 runoff; David Prescott declared winner amid public questions about Randall County procedures

A special meeting of the Amarillo City Council on June 16, 2025, certified the results of the June 7 runoff election, declaring David Prescott the winner of Council Member Place 3 after officials reported 9,281 valid and legal ballots cast.

The certification came after two council members met under a provision of the Texas election code permitting a reduced canvassing quorum; the meeting record shows a 2–0 vote to adopt Resolution 06-16-25-1, “canvassing the returns for the runoff election held June 7, 2025.”

The meeting drew two public commenters who urged the council to delay certification pending investigation. Claudette Smith said she had “one simple ask: do not canvas the results for this runoff today,” alleging that Randall County’s surveillance camera in the main tabulation room “was pointed at the ceiling for days” and that the county later took the livestream offline. Smith also alleged discrepancies she said included provisional ballots and improperly used mail ballot applications; she referenced Texas election code sections cited in her remarks. “If you certify this election today without demanding answers about the surveillance measures, the missing ballots, the legally questionable mailings, you are the faces of complicity,” Smith said.

Mike Fisher, who identified himself as an Amarillo resident, also urged the council to review the city charter’s quorum requirements and asked council members to scrutinize the process. Fisher raised unrelated prior concerns about transactions involving former councilman Les Simpson and called on Council Member Tim Reed to investigate the integrity of the process.

City Secretary Miss Coggins responded on procedural details presented at the meeting. She said she had contacted Shannon Lackey, the Randall County election administrator, who told her a citizen reported the livestream outage and county staff worked with IT to restore the feed. Coggins said county staff confirmed the camera still recorded locally even while the live stream was offline. She said Randall County’s ballot board met at 2 p.m. Friday, that four ballots were opened at that meeting—three for Tom Sherlin and one for David Prescott—and that the county’s ballot-board process qualified three provisional ballots during early voting that were counted in the unofficial June 7 results.

Coggins also noted the city charter’s election-law provision (page 34, section 9) specifies that timing, ordering and canvassing procedures must conform to state law. She told the council that state law permits the two-member canvass used at the meeting and that canvassing must occur between three and 11 days after the election; the council was on day 10 and would need to act before the statutory window closed.

City Attorney Brian McWilliams told the council the certified returns submitted by Potter and Randall counties are presumed valid on their face and that a candidate or other interested party would need to bring a legal challenge if they believed state law had not been followed. “Right now, what you have is the certified vote from both counties,” McWilliams said. He confirmed there are statutory remedies available but said they must be pursued by the aggrieved party or their counsel.

Council discussion at the meeting focused on those procedural clarifications and on whether to request further information from the counties. The city manager indicated staff could contact county officials to follow up on the questions raised but also noted that the counties had completed their certification processes.

The council then considered Resolution 06-16-25-1, which the city secretary presented as the formal canvass of the June 7 runoff. A council member moved “that we accept the votes as canvassed,” another council member seconded the motion, and the motion passed on a recorded 2–0 vote. The resolution states that Prescott received a majority of the votes cast for Place 3 and was duly elected.

The meeting record shows no additional formal actions or referrals. City officials said any further investigation into county procedures would be handled through county channels or by parties bringing a formal challenge under state law.

David Prescott’s election certification concludes the canvass process at the municipal level. Any candidate or voter seeking to contest the result would need to pursue the remedies provided in state election law; the council did not direct staff to delay certification or to withhold the resolution pending further county responses.