Spring City council approves canvass of Nov. 18 election, certifies turnout

Spring City Special City Council voted Tuesday to approve the canvass of its Nov. 18 municipal election and to certify the results after county staff verified machine tallies with a hand recount, council members said. The motion to approve the canvass was moved by Councilmember Marty McCain and seconded by Randy Strait; the presiding official announced the vote was unanimous among those present.

The certification follows a report from local election staff showing 652 registered voters in Spring City and 492 ballots cast, a turnout the presenter calculated at about 75.46%. "That gave us a 75.46% of total, which was awesome," said Ruth Ann, who presented the canvass report. County audit staff also pulled two batches for hand recounts and had sworn counters verify that the hand counts matched the machine tallies, according to Linda, who presented the audit certification. Linda said the county "properly maintained the chain of custody and controls as outlined in the state rules" and that voter-list maintenance and software validation complied with state and federal requirements.

The canvass presentation listed vote totals for several races. The transcript records Dan Rasmussen with 241 votes in the mayoral race; the number read aloud for Paul Penrod was unclear in the audio transcript (the presenter said "400 or 247"). For a multi-seat council race the presenter reported Laurel Workman with 299 votes, Michael Rodvette with 248 and Randy (surname read elsewhere as Randy Strait) with 229. For the two-year council seat, Chris Anderson was reported at 250 and James Baker at 226, with 16 undervotes noted in that contest. The presenter also reported seven ballots returned past the deadline and five ballots returned unsigned; election staff indicated they follow up with those voters to obtain signatures. One provisional ballot was not counted because it was incomplete.

During the meeting Ruth Ann explained the ballot-method breakdown reported by the county: mail/drop-box ballots and mailings, three early in-person votes, 30 in-person election-day votes and one military ballot returned. She noted Spring City's turnout was higher than the countywide figure the presenter read as 47.2%.

After the council voted to approve the canvass, the presiding official said the council would sign the official form and that the certification reflected the council's determination "to the best of your knowledge." The council then moved on to other agenda items and later adjourned.

The council did not release a written, item-by-item reconciliation of every contested ballot on the public record at the meeting. The canvass approval and audit certification complete the locally required step to finalize the election results; the certification form will be signed following the vote.