Fifty-three more ballots from the Nov. 8 general election were counted Wednesday when the Barton County Commission met as the Board of County Canvassers in the Office of the County Clerk.

The slight changes to the totals did not result in any new winners from those announced the night of Nov. 8 but are the final tally, which includes valid provisional ballots. The results for all races can be found on the BartonCounty.org website.   

County Clerk/Election Officer Bev Schmeidler commented that the election went smoothly and turnout was 49.95%.

Fifty-eight ballots had been set aside as “provisional” on election night. Voter Registration Clerk Darin DeWitt explained that all but five of those ballots could be counted.

For example, one man who showed up to vote was surprised to discover his driver’s license had expired and he hadn’t brought any other form of photo identification. He later returned with valid proof of his identification, which is why his ballot was counted on Wednesday.

Other reasons a ballot might be held are if the voter has moved to another address but is still in the county, or if the voter’s name has changed, usually due to marriage. In those cases, the voter is able to re-register at the polling place.

Voters who did not receive their requested advanced ballots in the mail could vote provisionally, and that accounted for two ballots counted Wednesday. It was verified that they had not used the mail ballots prior to the canvass.

Another voter had moved out of Barton County but was still able to vote because it was within the 30-day grace period.

The votes not counted included three instances where the voters were not registered in Barton County and two more where the voters needed to re-register but did not do so at the polling place on election day.  

The commissioners opened the sealed envelopes containing provisional ballots that were legitimate and then handed them to Schmeidler, who fed them into the vote-counting machine. If the machine was unable to read a ballot, commissioners worked together to fill in the ovals on a new copy, provided they agreed that they could determine the intent of the voter. They did not have to include write-in votes for someone who was not a valid candidate in the election, such as the vote for Donald Trump and Mike Pence, who were not running here. But a valid write-in vote was counted.

The deadline to file a request for a recount is 5 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 18.