Incumbent trustee and school board chair Betty Baxter was re-elected by about 152 votes, despite an original election night announcement that she re-claimed her seat by just one ballot.
“We have conclusive, definitive results on who the trustees are,” said School District No. 46 chief election officer Nicholas Weswick after a review of the ballots Tuesday.
“It is Betty Baxter by about 152 votes.”
He said the wrong number written on a tally sheet was to blame for the original announcement that Baxter had won over candidate Allan Stevenson by just one vote.
“On forensic analysis it looks like what happened is on one of the tally sheets there was 169 votes for Betty Baxter and they wrote the total down wrong, they just wrote 19 instead of 169, so they effectively left out the six, however that happened,” Weswick said. “So the ballots were cast correctly, the votes were counted, but in the totalling of the column, something went wrong there.”
Baxter will join incumbents Lori Dixon and Greg Russell, who also ran for a spot in rural area two, and acclaimed Sechelt trustees Christine Younghusband, Dave Mewhort, acclaimed rural area one trustee Lori Pratt and Pamila Ruth, who was acclaimed in Gibsons, on the new school board.
Coast Reporter will have further reactions from the candidates in its Nov, 21st print and on-line editions.
