- September 11, 2024
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Just 47 ballots stand between two local Flagler County elections and final results.
For the first time in six years, these local races fall within a half-percent margin that could trigger a manual recount of the votes for those two races.
The Flagler County Commission District 5 race is separated by 40 votes, or a .26% margin. Two of three candidates in a Palm Coast City Council race have an even narrower split of two votes, or a .02% margin.
Both races are well within the half-percent margin that triggers a recount. In an email from Supervisor of Elections Kaiti Lenhart, she wrote of the 47 outstanding ballots, 20 are provisional ballots and 27 are referred mail ballots due to signature mismatch.
The provisional and referred mail ballots will be verified by the Flagler County Canvassing Board at 10 a.m. on Friday, Aug. 23 at the Supervisor of Elections Office, according to a public notice of the Flagler County Canvassing Board. If a recount is triggered for either race after those ballots are verified, a machine recount will begin at 2 p.m. that day.
If the Canvassing Board orders a manual recount following the machine recount, the manual recount will immediately follow the machine recount.
The board is made up of three people, according to the Supervisor of Election’s website: the Elections Supervisor, Lenhart, County Commissioner Dave Sullivan and Flagler County Judge Andrea Totten, who will be the board’s chair.
Commissioner Donald O’Brien and Judge Melissa Distler are alternates for the board.
Board members cannot be a candidate in one of the races being canvassed nor an active participant in the campaign or candidacy of another candidate. Neither Sullivan nor O’Brien ran for reelection and will be stepping down from their seats after the new commissioners are inducted.
The recount will be open to the public to watch and “candidates, representatives, and committees of the current election, as well as the public, are encouraged to attend and observe,” the press release said. The Supervisor of Elections Office is located at the county government services buildings at 1769 E. Moody Boulevard, Building 2, Suite 101.
In the Flagler County Commission District 5 race, Palm Coast Vice Mayor Ed Danko faced Pam Richardson. With 15,132 total votes cast for the race, Danko has only 49.87% of the vote to Richardson's 50.13%.
To flip the results and defeat Richardson, Danko will need to retain 44 of the 47 outstanding ballots. Conversely, Richardson just needs four additional votes to secure her win.
The Palm Coast City Council District 3 race had three candidates: Andrew Werner, Dana “Mark” Stancel and Ray Stevens. Werner secured his position in a general election runoff for the seat with 34.38% of 18,857 votes. Stevens narrowly came in second with 32.82% — or 6,188 — of the remaining vote while Stancel received 32.80%, or 6,186 votes.
With the race between Stancel and Stevens separated by a such a narrow margin, either man could still go on to face Werner in the runoff in November.
Should a candidate decide to appeal the recount, they will need a record of the proceedings, the press release said: “…they need to ensure a verbatim record of the proceeding is made, which includes the testimony and evidence upon which the appeal is to be based.”
This story was updated on Thursday, Aug. 22. A previous version of this story incorrectly said it was the Flagler County District 1 seat, not the District 5 seat, that could see a recount.
