Homer canvass board takes up 1,000-plus ballots with a council race 75 votes apart

Homer's Canvass Board met Friday to decide which of more than 1,000 absentee and other ballots from Tuesday's city election will count, nearly as many as voters cast at the polls.

That could matter in at least one race. On election night, Bradley Parsons led Matt Bullard by 75 votes for the second of two City Council seats on the ballot.

Election-night counts showed Caroline Venuti in first for the three-year council seats with 508 votes, followed by Parsons with 457 and Bullard with 382. Shelly Erickson, the only name on the ballot for mayor, drew 862 votes, with 43 write-ins.

Proposition A, renewing the city's road and trail tax, led 754 to 255. The 0.75% sales tax pays for the Homer Accelerated Roads and Trails program, known as HART, and is set to expire Dec. 31, 2027. The ordinance that put it on the ballot would extend it 20 more years.

The board's agenda packet lists 1,026 absentee ballots, 19 special-needs ballots and four questioned ballots as expected to count, pending the board's decisions. By comparison, 1,086 ballots were cast on Election Day at Homer's two polling places, Kachemak Bay Campus and Homer United Methodist Church.

The packet also notes that poll workers at one precinct found a tabulator's security seals broken early on Election Day morning and replaced them with new seals. Precinct incident reports also record several voters who didn't sign the city register.

The results remain unofficial until the City Council certifies them. A member of the canvass board is to report to the council Monday, Nov. 9, when a resolution certifying the election is on the agenda.