County commissioners accept updated canvass after staff corrects unassigned write‑in votes

An unidentified county elections staff member told county commissioners that a review during the board of canvass found previously unassigned write‑in votes in recent elections, and the commission voted unanimously to accept an updated county summary report.

The staff member opened the report with an apology: "And this is an error on my part," and said, "During the board of canvass, we realized that we had some unassigned write‑in votes in the office of president, senate and governor." The staff said the unassigned write‑ins in the presidential and senate contests were nonqualified and therefore recorded as nonqualified write‑ins.

On the gubernatorial contest, the staff member said there were nine unassigned write‑ins: "6 of those were properly written out for the Phil Lyman campaign, and 3 of them were non valid." The staff said they had updated the summary report to reflect those assignments and corrections and asked the commissioners to accept the revised report as the official county results.

A commissioner moved to approve the updated summary and another commissioner seconded. Following two recorded "Aye" responses and the presiding commissioner's statement that the vote was unanimous, the commission approved the updated canvass. The presiding commissioner stated, "That is unanimous."

Commissioners thanked staff for addressing the issue. The elections staff member again apologized for the error and said it had been corrected. The meeting then was adjourned.

The action formalized the corrected county tally as presented to the board; the record shows the corrections were limited to write‑in assignments and the commission took no additional actions beyond approving the revised report.