Columbus City Council District 1 Republican representative Dascal Bunch said he will file for a recount after losing the District 1 race in the municipal election by one vote.
Democratic challenger Jerone Wood defeated Bunch in the Republican’s bid for a third term on the city council by one vote, 260 to 259 on Nov. 5. Wood was one of four Democrats who won city council seats, giving the Democrats their first majority on the council since 1983, election officials said.
Bunch met with attorney Scott Andrews on Monday to discuss his options and the probability of a recount putting Bunch ahead of Wood. Bunch said he will officially request a recount by the end of this week.
Wood said he saw Bunch’s decision to file for a recount coming and said he has no plans to seek legal representation in the process.
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“I’m OK with him calling for a recall,” Wood said. “It was one vote. He has the option. I’m still humble with the fact there were so many people that voted for me in the first place. However it ends up, this is a new day and I’m just honored about the amount of people who did vote.”
The deadline for Bunch to file a request for a recount is noon Nov. 19, Bartholomew County Clerk Jay Phelps said. The deadline for Bartholomew County GOP chairwoman Barb Hackman to file on behalf of a Republican candidate is noon Nov. 22.
The candidate or party chair must file the request for a recount with the clerk’s office, Phelps said. The request would then be randomly assigned to a Bartholomew County judge as a civil case, Phelps said.
The filing fee to request a recount is $157, county election officials said. If a request is filed, “the judge will set the parameters” of the recount, Phelps said.
Currently, recounts in Indiana involving electronic voting machines are done by reprinting the vote tallies on the machines and comparing them to the number of signatures in the poll books, Phelps said. Additionally, mail-in paper ballots would be recounted by hand.
The last recount done in a Columbus municipal election was in the 2011 general election, after Republican Frank Jerome defeated Democrat Greg Knoll by two votes, 879 to 877, to win the Columbus City Council District 3 seat, Phelps said.
The results did not change after that recount, Phelps said.
