Judge will appoint recount commission next week

Greene County Superior Court Judge J. David Holt will appoint a three-member recount commission for the County Council At-Large race sometime on or after Tuesday.

On Tuesday, the Greene County Republican Central Committee filed a petition for a recount of Greene County Council race for all 32 precincts in the county.

The Superior Court received the petition late Tuesday afternoon and had prepared notices of the suit to the six named defendants -- the six candidates -- Democrat William "Butch" Brown, Republican Jerry Frye, Democrat Rae Della Cravens, Republican Ken Gremore, Republican Carolyn White and Democrat Scott Richards.

The top three vote-getters earn a seat on the council.

The race for the third and final seat is very tight -- one-vote separate Cravens and Gremore.

Currently, Cravens holds a one-vote advantage over Gremore -- 6,372 to 6,371.

The two other council seats will be filled by Brown, who tallied 6,676 votes to win a third term. Brown is followed Fyre with 6,427 votes.

Judge Holt said according to state statute, his office is charged with preparing notices to the defendants of the recount petition.

"I have done that," Holt told the Greene County Daily World on Thursday afternoon.

The notices must be served in person or at the place of business of each of the defendants by the Greene County Sheriff's Department. The judge expected that process to be started on Thursday afternoon and concluded on Friday.

Judge Holt says he can not formally appoint the three-member recount commission until after Nov. 25 -- which is 21 days after the Nov. 4 General Election -- per state election regulations.

He must wait until that date for any of the defendants to file a cross recount petition until after Tuesday before appointing the commission.

The commission will consist of one representative from the two major political parties -- Democrat and Republican -- and a person who is certified as a technician for the electronic voting system.

After appointing the commission, the judge will determine the dates of their meetings and the rate of pay.

Each member can each be paid up to $100 per day.

Greene County Clerk Jackie Winstead said the technical person would likely be a representative from MicroVote, Inc. -- the Indianapolis-based firm that sold the electronic voting system to the county.

The entire recount process has to be concluded by Dec. 20.

In the petition, filed by Randall Brown as chairman of the Greene County Republican Party, alleges that Brown does not think the votes were counted correctly and has asked for a manual recount of the ballots.

There were 10,704 ballots cast by machine on election day and another 3,306 were consisted to be absentee votes. This figure included the ballots cast at two pre-election satellite locations as well as the ballots that were cast in the Voter Registration office prior to the election.

Winstead said the actual number of "paper" absentee ballots is about 1,300.

The Republican Party by sponsoring the recount -- on behalf of Gremore -- agreed to pay the $320 bond -- $10 for each precinct to be recounted -- and the $199 filing fee.

Brown explained that the bond is submitted and used to pay the daily per diem for each of three commission members. If the per diem exceeds the bond amount, then any additional recount costs will be paid out of the County General Fund,

Reading from the state election code, Brown said, "If the deposit or the bond is not sufficient to pay the compensation of the recount commission or any other recount expenses, the compensation or the expenses are to be paid from the County General Fund without appropriation."

Brown added, "Actually to the county we (the Republican Party) have paid our dues according to the law."

The GOP chairman also pointed out that the entire recount process is conducted under terms of the Indiana Open Door law and will be open to the media and the general public.