Kootenai County’s Board of Canvassers unanimously approved the canvas of the Nov. 4, 2025 consolidated election at a Nov. 13 meeting after elections staff reviewed testing, vote postings and a handful of ballot-issuance and absentee issues. The board’s motion to accept the canvas passed on a 3-0 vote.

Elections staff told Commissioners that county technicians and the county’s elections manager conducted both internal testing (a 903-ballot test deck) and a public logic-and-accuracy test on Oct. 17, and that the county retested equipment on election morning and after tabulation. The presenter, identified in the record as Asa, said every DSA-50 central-count tabulator and DS-300 precinct counter matched the test deck in each test and that machine reports showed 100% agreement with the test deck.

The office posted a series of unofficial results on election night: an initial posting for early voting and some absentee tallies at about 8:15 p.m., a supplemental absentee posting at 8:34 p.m., the first election-day precinct results at 9:49 p.m., additional precinct updates at 10:10 p.m., and final unofficial results (including adjudicated ballots) at 10:58 p.m. County staff later posted PDFs of overall unofficial and precinct-by-precinct results to the county website.

Staff reported 30,705 total ballots cast in the election, describing overall turnout as roughly 28% (the narrative also lists a 28.2% figure in one table). The presentation identified wide precinct variation: some precincts recorded turnout as low as about 18%, while others—such as Precinct 410—showed turnout in the 40% range.

The clerk’s narrative documented a small number of election-day ballot-issuance errors across several precincts, largely involving voters receiving a ballot style that included contests from a nearby city or school zone. Examples listed by staff included Precinct 406 (one voter given a 406C ballot instead of 406E), Precinct 516 (one 516DD given a 516LL ballot), and several precincts with one or two extra ballots or blank ballots noted (Precincts 319, 402, 507, 521 and 522). The presenter said none of the discrepancies affected the outcome of any contests.

Elections staff also identified absentee-return issues: 64 ballots arrived late and were not accepted, nine were rejected for lack of signature, 30 were rejected for signature mismatch that was not corrected, and one absentee was classified as a spoiled return after the voter later voted in person. The office said its procedures detected the potential double vote and rejected the absentee in that case.

The presentation highlighted precinct and contest-level detail to illustrate turnout dynamics. Small-city contests—including Athol, Hayden, Spirit Lake, Harrison, Coeur d’Alene and Post Falls—drove turnout in several precincts, and some school trustee races produced narrow margins: a Lakeland trustee race was decided by 38 votes, staff said. Staff also noted the county ran 196 ballot styles across 74 precincts for this election, increasing the complexity poll workers faced.

During the meeting, Secretary of State Phil McGrane, who attended as a guest, commended Kootenai County elections staff for their work and noted recent statewide improvements in voter information. "You have one of the most thorough and detailed canvasses I’ve ever seen," McGrane told the board, and he highlighted a new statewide results tool and voteidaho.gov sample-ballot feature that let voters check whether they had contests to vote on.

Commissioner (speaker 4) moved to approve and accept the canvas pursuant to Idaho Code 34-1205. The motion was seconded; Commissioners Eberlein, Duncan and Chair Metari each voted "Aye," and the motion carried. The board adjourned at about 9:30 a.m.

The county clerk’s office said it will continue routine follow-up (including sending correspondence to voters with missing registration information) and maintain coordination with the secretary of state’s office on reporting tools and training for poll workers ahead of future elections.