Only 17 votes separate two candidates.
Frederick, Md (KM). It’s still too close to call in the Frederick County Board of Education Race between Kim Williams and Maria Fischer-Wyrick.
The results from Tuesday’s Primary Election show that Williams was leading Fischer-Wyrick by 40 votes. But following Thursday’s absentee ballot canvass, Election Director Stuart Harvey says Williams’ lead has shrunk to 17 votes. “Maria Fischer-Wyrick has 4,976, and Kim L. Williams has 4,993,” he says. “Maria Fischer-Wyrick picked up 84 votes in the absentee canvas, and Ms. Williams go 61.”
He says this race probably won’t be settled until next week. “On this race in particular, we’re probably going to have to wait until July 6th and the final numbers are in to see what we’re looking at,” says Harvey.
The Board of Elections will conduct a count of 650 provisional ballots on Wednesday, July 5th. A second canvass of absentee ballots will take place the next day. The election results will be certified after the final absentee ballot count,” says Harvey.
A number of provisional ballots were cast by citizens who went to the Motor Vehicle Administration to record changes such as addresses and party affiliation. But MVA did not forward that information to the Board of Elections. Those citizens were allowed to cast provisional ballots on election day.
Harvey says Frederick County has some of those provisional ballots. “Until we actually start reviewing these provisional ballots–we know how many we have but we have not had a chance to review all of them–we’ll be reviewing them over the course of next few days. We’ll find out how many had MVA problems because we’re marking them if they had an MVA problem.”
He says the results from primary election day and early voting were confirmed during Thursday’s absentee ballot count. In the Board of Education race, the candidates who will move on to the general election are Brad Young, Karen Yoho, Liz Barrett, Jay Mason, April Miller, Camden Raynor and Cindy Rose. The eighth slot will be filled by either Kim Williams or Maria Fischer-Wyrick.
During the General Election, voters will choose from eight candidates to fill four seats on the School Board which are up for re-election this year.
By Kevin McManus