Homer canvass adds eight ballots to city election count, with one still missing

Homer's election canvass board signed an updated vote count Monday that adds eight ballots to the Nov. 3 city election results, and City Clerk Amy Woodruff said one ballot remains unaccounted for. The added ballots changed no outcome. Shelly Erickson is still the mayor-elect, and voters still renewed the city's roads and trails sales tax.

The City Council took up certification of the election the same day, using the updated certificate in a supplemental packet. No minutes of the Nov. 9 meeting have been posted, so it is not yet clear whether the council adopted the certifying resolution, or with which figures.

The short count came to light when the canvass board met Nov. 6 to take up more than 1,000 absentee and other ballots. Woodruff's memo says the tabulator counted six fewer ballots than expected. On Monday she reviewed the calculations with the board's chair. That day, "Five of the six envelopes were located between the dividers used to organize ballot envelopes," the memo says.

The Kenai Peninsula Borough clerk also faxed over two special needs envelopes and ballots. They had been returned by 8 pm Alaska time on election night, and the borough's canvass board found they belonged to Homer. And a voter who had not signed an absentee in-person envelope came back to City Hall and signed it. "One remains unaccounted for," Woodruff wrote.

The eight ballots moved each race by eight votes or fewer. The closest margin on the ballot was 337 votes.

Erickson, a council member who was the only name on the mayoral ballot, received 1,687 votes, or 95%, for the two-year term. Write-ins drew 87.

Caroline Venuti, with 1,192 votes, and Bradley Parsons, with 997, won the two three-year council seats. Matt Bullard received 660 and write-ins 39.

Voters approved Proposition A 1,606 to 406, about 80%. It continues Homer's three-fourths percent sales tax for the Homer Accelerated Roads and Trails program past Dec. 31, 2027, for up to 20 more years. The program pays for street reconstruction, new local roads and trails, and road and trail maintenance. The borough's voter pamphlet put budgeted revenue at about $2.3 million a year.

The city's election results page still posts the Nov. 6 figures, including Erickson at 1,683 votes and Proposition A at 1,600 to 404. The resolution in the council's main packet also uses the older Proposition A figures. Both certificates report 2,206 voters, 40% of Homer's 5,460 registered voters.

Monday's agenda also carried the swearing-in of the newly elected officials and a recognition of outgoing Mayor Rachel Lord.