Ripley County Sheriff's Election Is Official And Still Headed For Recount

Incumbent sheriff Mike Barton (left) and former chief deputy Richie Phillips (right) are headed toward an official recount possibly as soon as next week. Barton claimed 1,307 votes in the Aug. 4 Republican primary election while Phillips finished with 1,306.

The Ripley County Sheriff’s race is now official but still far from being decided.

The county’s election verification board worked more than 2-1/2 hours Friday afternoon to certify the 2,920 votes cast during the Aug. 4 primary election.

After all the votes were declared official, totals for the sheriff’s primary election on the Republican ticket remained unchanged. Incumbent sheriff Mike Barton once again finished with 1,307 votes. Challenger Richie Phillips had 1,306.

The next step will be a manual recounting of the vote possibly as soon as next week. The winner will earn a four-year term as sheriff since no Democrat candidates await in the general election.

County clerk Becky York said Friday afternoon that Phillips has indicated to her office that he will petition the circuit court for a recount.

“There is no such thing as an automatic recount in Missouri,” York said. “The only ones we have had here were within the one percent difference allowed for local issues.”

At the county level, any election where the vote difference is less than one percent of the total votes casts (in this case 26 votes), a recount is allowed. The 2020 sheriff’s election easily falls into that category.

Friday’s verification procedure was not a recount. The board follows procedures from the office of the secretary of state which includes a hand tally of ballots from a selected polling location.

An official recount ordered by a judge will be done manually by a bipartisan panel of local citizens.

In Ripley County, each voter places their ballot into an electronic tabulating machine upon voting. The post-election printout provides various information about every race on the ballot. One category is called an ‘undervote.’

An undervote can occur when the voter makes no mark for any candidates in a particular race or makes a mark unreadable by the machine.

For the Aug. 4 sheriff’s race, a total of 52 ballots were categorized by the tabulating equipment as an ‘undervote,’ York said. Those undervotes will be closely examined during the manual recount with some possibly being counted.

York said during Friday’s hand-tallying one additional vote was awarded to public administrator candidate Donna Barnett and District 153 state representative candidate Skip Johnson. All other totals remained unchanged.

Close finishes and recounts aren’t new in Ripley County primary elections.

In 2016, the Republican race for western district commissioner finished in a tie and resulted in a runoff. In the second go-around, Andy Towell defeated Jerry Kelly by one vote. A manual recount was ordered by the court with the one-vote margin remaining unchanged.

In the case of an official recount, the winner must be declared by the court.