Fayette County clerk testifies 37 ballots cannot be matched, leaving Plateau GOP seat outcome unclear

FAYETTE COUNTY — At an evidentiary hearing on May 18, Fayette County Clerk Michelle Holly told commissioners that county election records show 37 more Republican ballots were cast in the Plateau District Republican executive committee race than the number of registered Republicans recorded as voting, and she said her office cannot match those ballots to individual registrants because of ballot-secrecy protocols.

"Once that ballot stub comes off that ballot and it goes into the DS200 into the tabulator, there's no way for me to know which ballot is yours," Holly testified. "I have no way knowing which ballot was yours. And I don't want to know because ... that would violate your constitutional rights."

The discrepancy emerged when Holly compared two reports: the election-night reporting feed (ballots cast by precinct) and a voter-history snapshot taken after the election. In a precinct example discussed in the hearing, Holly said 208 Republican ballots were recorded as cast while the voter-history snapshot showed 185 registered Republicans recorded as voting there, a 23-ballot difference in that precinct alone. Across the affected precincts, she said, the aggregate discrepancy amounted to 37 ballots.

Brandon Gray, counsel for one affected candidate, moved to admit Holly's written statement and a county letter dated May 18, 2026, summarizing canvass tallies; the commission voted to admit the materials into evidence. "We got a report later in the day from a precinct ... that someone who is nonaffiliated was allowed to vote on the Republican primary," Holly told the commission when asked to summarize the earlier communication.

Commissioners and counsel then examined whether the unaccounted ballots could have altered the outcome. Because voters in the executive committee race could cast up to two votes, the 37 extra ballots could translate into as many as 74 votes; counsel and commissioners ran scenarios to test whether reallocating those votes could change which two candidates finished first and second. Holly said she could not run a one-for-one forensic match between ballots and voters, though she agreed that under the tallies presented the candidate with the most votes would remain among the top two under most plausible allocations.

Several candidates and spectators testified. Candidate Robert Love told the commissioners that after doing his own calculations "in any scenario, no matter how you divided out, I would land in one of the top two spots." Petitioner William Jennings Best, who finished third in the certified count, said the discrepancy and the expense of contesting the result had harmed him and asked the commission to order a new contest on the general-election ballot.

Holly described steps the county is pursuing to reduce future human error: the commission has authorized purchasing electronic poll books that would print the correct ballot style at check-in and limit manual party-selection mistakes, and the clerk said the office will increase poll-worker training.

The clerk also told the panel that ballots are stored in a locked election room (she identified the secure storage location as the memorial building basement) and that, under current processes and state law, ballot secrecy prevents county officials from linking a particular ballot to the individual who cast it.

After a brief recess to produce copies of Holly's documentation, the commission admitted the materials and agreed to reconvene July 22 at 11 a.m. to vote on findings of fact and conclusions of law. No final decision on certification or ordering a new election was made at the hearing.

The commission did admit Holly's written statement and the May 18 letter into evidence and set the date for its written decision; commissioners and counsel acknowledged that the question before the panel is whether the numerical discrepancies render the race not ascertainable and what remedial action, if any, is appropriate.