Casper College Board Trustee Recount Doesn't Change the Outcome

A recount of the votes for the Casper College trustee candidates who came in fourth and fifth in the results on Tuesday did not change the outcome, Natrona County Clerk Tracy Good said Friday.

Natrona County residents had a list of six candidates from which to choose four during the general election.

There were a total of 74,468 votes cast for the trustee candidates.

According to the unofficial results, Susan Miller received 15,310 votes; followed by Scott Bennion with 13,553 votes; followed by Liz Batton with 12,158 votes; followed by Steve Degenfelder with 11,620 votes; followed by Kevin Meenan with 11,563 votes; and Bill Degraeve with 9.694 votes.

There were 570 write-in votes.

However, there was a 57 vote, or 0.07%, difference between the votes for Degenfelder and Meenan. That was less than 1% of the votes cast, which triggered an automatic recount.

Good ran the ballots through the computer on Thursday.

The number of total votes cast was the same, she said.

But the recount ballots were counted on the machine at the elections office at the old courthouse, which has different sensitivity levels than those at the polling places, Good said. The machine at the courthouse may count a pen mark -- not a completely filled in oval -- on a ballot as a vote, whereas a machine at the polls may record the pen mark as an undercount, she said. "That's to be expected when we do these types of things."

Thee recount total showed Degenfelder with 11,617 votes -- three fewer than the first unofficial count, and Meenan with 11,564 votes -- one more than the first unofficial count.

That left Degenfelder winning on the board.

"These are still unofficial, of course," Good said.