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Date Published: November 12, 2004
Recount to settle Dist. 35
By LESLIE CANTU
Item Staff Writer
lesliec@theitem.com
The Sumter County Election Commission will meet at the
county courthouse once more this morning to recount the votes in the
state Senate District 35 race.
The South Carolina State
Election Commission met Thursday to certify the results of last
week's general election. Certification simply means the commission
gives its seal of approval to the results and makes them
official.
However, because the state Senate race is so close
— a margin of 55 votes — with 50.08 percent of the vote going to
state Sen. Phil Leventis, D-Sumter, and 49.91 percent going to
Republican challenger Dickie Jones, the state ordered a
recount.
That recount will take place at 9 a.m. today at the
Sumter County and Lee County courthouses. It won't affect any of the
other races.
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LEVENTIS | |
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JONES | |
Both
Leventis and Jones have said they don't expect the outcome of the
election to change after the recount. But Jones left open the
possibility of appealing the election because of irregularities if
Leventis remains the winner. Jones' legal partner and representative
J Cabot Seth would not elaborate.
Candidates have five
calendar days after certification to protest an election. Hannah
Majewski, the spokeswoman for the State Election Commission, said
the recount will be certified at 2 p.m. today, so the candidates
will have until noon Wednesday to protest the election.
The
State Election Commission must hear a protest between the fifth and
25th day after the protest is filed.
The candidates'
representatives and possibly the candidates themselves will be at
today's recount. The recount should be a mechanical affair, since
all the ballots will be counted by machine.
On election
night, many of the ballots had to be hand-counted because of the
write-in campaign for Sumter County auditor. This time it won't
matter if a ballot has a write-in vote or not, so the election
commission should have a final answer more quickly than it did
election night, when commissioners stayed at the courthouse until
after 9 a.m. the following day counting the ballots with write-ins.
Contact Staff Writer Leslie Cantu at lesliec@theitem.com or
803-774-1250.
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November 12, 2004 
