Frye-Mueller remains winner

District 30 state senator Julie Frye-Mueller lost a few votes in the recount of her June 7 primary race against Rep. Tim Goodwin, but still won the primary.
According to an article last week in the Rapid City Journal, the recount requested by Goodwin following his 46 vote loss to Frye-Mueller was completed last Tuesday.
Since District 30 is comprised of parts of three counties—Custer, Fall River and Pennington—the recount involved election officials in all three jurisdictions. Frye-Mueller picked up one additional vote in Pennington County but the results in Custer County results remained unchanged from the official June primary canvass.
Meanwhile in Fall River County, the outcome of the race was ultimately unchanged but the ballot count was altered by the recount. Thirty-six ballots there did not bear the official ballot stamp which meant they had to be thrown out. The ballots in question had reportedly been stamped with a date stamp by mistake. This had occurred at the polling place on the day of the election.
This action took away 24 ballots from Frye-Mueller and 12 from Goodwin which brought Frye-Mueller’s Fall River total to 826 votes. Goodwin got 681 votes in the county. With those changes, the total vote for Frye-Mueller between the three counties was 2,826 votes to 2,791 for Goodwin.
Goodwin was the winner of the primary in Pennington County where he resides and Frye-Mueller, who also lives in Pennington County, won Custer and Fall River Counties.
In conducting the recount, the staffs of the various county auditors removed the disputed ballots from sealed ballot boxes and tested the tabulator machines. The recount board then checked each ballot looking for the official stamp and the approved marking procedure. Then auditor's staff ran the ballots through the tabulating machine.
The overall result of the recount was to narrow Frye-Mueller's lead over Goodwin from the 49 votes announced the day after the election to 35 votes.
Since no Democrats filed to run for District 30 senate in the November election, Frye-Mueller will retain her seat in the legislature for two more years.