Recordpub.com - Kent mayor's race unresolved: Fiala leads Hawksley, but final count could take weeks

By Mike Sever

Record-Courier staff writer

With just two votes separating them from the Kent mayor’s post, Jerry Fiala and Rick Hawksley apparently are headed for an automatic recount.

But that could change depending on the outcome of provisional and absentee ballots still to be counted.

Fiala got 2,013 votes to 2,011 for Hawksley in Tuesday’s election, according to unofficial results from the Portage County Board of Elections.

“We’re hanging in there. It’s just going to be a wait-and-see situation and we’ll react to whatever comes our way,” Fiala said Wednesday.

“When I filed my petitions I decided I was either the winner or the loser,” said Fiala, a former councilman and mayor who ran as an independent.

Hawksley, a two-term at-large councilman who was the Democratic nominee, said Election Day “was certainly one of the longest days of my life. Now it’s going to be the longest 20 days” until the board certifies final results.

The election night tally, the closest in a mayoral race in Kent’s history, includes absentee ballots and votes at the polls.

But there are still some 500 absentee ballots outstanding that could arrive in the mail. And there are eight absentee ballots in Kent with incomplete information on their identification envelope. Voters have 13 days to come in and fill in the missing information.

The Portage County Board of Elections will certify the results on Nov. 24. Until then, both candidates are taking it easy.

Hawksley and Fiala each won 10 precincts. They tied with 14 votes each in Kent Precinct 4-A.

“It’s essentially a dead heat,” Hawksley said.

The win could depend on ballots that are still to be received in the mail.

Absentee ballots postmarked by Nov. 2 as well as those from military and civilian voters who live out of the U.S. will be accepted up to Nov. 13.

Also, there are 89 provisional ballots in Kent, not all of which may be counted if the elections board decides they are invalid.

Provisionals may be invalidated for a number of reasons — lacking proper identification, the ballot is not signed, or the person voted in the wrong precinct, for example.

If, after the board certifies results, there is still less than a half-of-one-percent difference in the vote totals, a recount will be done automatically.

If there is a wider difference in the final totals, candidates have five days to apply for a recount.

Both Fiala and Hawksley said that decision would depend on the final vote counts.

If the parties decide to contest the election in court, a challenge must be filed with the local court within 15 days after the official results are certified or, if a recount is conducted, within 10 days after the official results of the recount are declared.

“The people at the board of elections are professionals so I guess we’ll just let them do their job,” Hawksley said.

Kent’s closest mayoral contest was in 1961 when a recount resulted in a tie between Mayor Redmond Greer, who had an 11-vote lead on election night, and his opponent, Robert Byrne. A coin toss broke the tie, giving Greer a second term.