Republican Joey Douan is seeking to throw out Tuesday's election in which Democrat Colleen Condon defeated him. The Charleston County Board of Elections and Voter Registration met Friday and certified the results, with 2,455 for Condon and 2,076 for Douan.

Tuesday's election itself was a do-over of a Jan. 11 contest that Douan won by 18 votes. Condon appealed that because about 200 eligible voters were mistakenly left off the rolls, and the state Supreme Court ordered a new contest.

Douan lost by 379 votes Tuesday, and his appeal focuses on three issues: He claims voters lacked privacy because the new voting machines didn't have curtains. He says voters in Plantation Apartments were allowed to vote in two County Council districts, and he says the county moved polling places without proper notice.

Condon said she was disappointed to learn of the appeal.

"I think the voters got a fair election," she said. "I wish he'd let us move on with the county's business."

Marilyn Bowers, director of the election board, said board members will hear the appeal at 10 a.m. Aug. 1.

The pending appeal might not delay Condon's ability to serve at the next council meeting. County Council currently is on summer schedule and isn't scheduled to meet until Aug. 17.

Condon said if the county board upholds the election, then she feels she can be sworn in, although she said her attorneys are looking at the matter further.

Douan was sworn in last January days before the county board heard Condon's protest hearing. The board ultimately upheld the protest, and a judge later ruled that Douan must abstain from voting until the election dispute was cleared up.

The charge that the voting machines should have had curtains harkens to an election protest that successfully overturned a city of Charleston referendum on nonpartisan elections. In that case, voters filled out paper ballots with no screens around them.

Condon said she is confident these new machines, which have been marketed nationally, will be found suitable.

Also, she said Douan was offered a chance to inspect the machines in May, two months before the election.

Election appeals are familiar turf for Douan, whose attorney spearheaded the successful challenge that threw out the results of a half-percent sales tax referendum in 2002.

Voters approved the tax in another referendum last year.