Election results

“The press was to serve the governed, not the governors.”

- U.S. Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black in New York Times Co. v. United States (1971)

Publisher Jennifer Hunt Murty jennifer@ocalagazette.com

Continued from page A1

Landt, Marion County Commissioner Craig Curry and Marion County Supervisor of Elections Wesley Wilcox randomly selected precinct 4170 to be audited.

Starley Ard, public relations coordinator for Wilcox’s office, explained how the board chooses which precinct will be audited.

“We have a ‘bingo’ system that consists of numbered pingpong balls for each participating precinct,’’ Ard said. “Usually, we also draw for a random contest as well; however, we did not this time since the ballot only contained a single contest.”

On March 20, the election team performed an audit of the voting system as prescribed by F.S. 101.591 and Rule 1S-5.026.

“The audit included all ballots cast in precinct 4170 (Vote-by-Mail, Early Voting, and Election Day),’’ Ard said. “A team consisting of two of our full-time staff (unknowing of the vote totals for the selected precinct) sorted the ballots by candidate, then hand-counted ballots from each of the groups and reported their totals, which were then confirmed by the board.’’

The hand count was not an arduous task because only 77 of the 610 Republican voters registered in that precinct cast ballots.

All 132,905 registered voters in District 24, regardless of party, will have the opportunity to vote in the May 16 election. The only candidate on the ballot will be Chamberlin. There also will be a blank line where voters must first bubble in that they are choosing to vote for a write-in candidate, then write in Fox’s name.