School district declares Houston winner of Zone 4 trustee position

In an election marked by considerable confusion, C.D. Houston was declared late Wednesday to be the winner of Tuesday's night's school board election.

The Mountain Home School District has declared C.D. Houston to have been elected to the Zone 4 trustee position -- at least tentatively.

In truth, they have absolutely no idea who actually won Tuesday night's election.

The initial count Tuesday night showed C.D. Houston leading William Murray by a slim three-vote margin, 47-44.

But when district election officials started to do a quick recount, they noticed that at least two people who had voted did not live in the contested trustee zone. They held an official canvass of the ballots Tuesday morning and found a third ballot illegally cast (the district prefers to call them invalid votes). The number of illegal/invalid votes thus equalled the margin of error in the election.

And there is nothing in state law that tells the district what to do now. In fact, the situation may be unique in state history, where the number of illegally cast ballots equalled or exceeded the margin of error.

"It was just a human error," school board chairman Jim Alexander said.

When voters arrived at the district office to cast their ballots they were asked to sign a voter's oath saying they lived in the appropriate trustee zone (trustees are elected by zone, not district-wide). The zones are somewhat confusing, "and if there is any question," Alexander said, "we look it (their address) up on the map that's posted" at the election site. "But this wasn't questioned," he said, and it wasn't until they began checking the ballots that one of the district's election counters noticed the names of two people who voted and that she knew didn't live in the correct zone.

No one in the district believes the illegal votes were cast intentionally, but probably were simply the result of confusion as to which zone they lived in.

District officials immediately called the Secretary of State's office and talked to officials in the elections division. A similar call made by the Mountain Home News indicated they were aware of what had gone on in Mountain Home, but couldn't give the district much advice, since there is no provision in state law dealing with that specific problem and no one there had ever heard of the problem being raised before.

However, state law does provide than any qualified elector (whether they voted or not) in the trustee zone -- not just the candidates -- could challenge the election by filing a challenge within 20 days. At that point, it would go to a judge to decide what to do. Theoretically, he could award the election to a candidate, call for a new election to be held, or direct some other solution.

"We've talked to both of the candidates," Alexander said, "and both of them are nice guys who don't have any axes to grind. So far (Wednesday morning), neither one has indicated they want to challenge. But we might do it as a board. We want to make sure that the right person is seated.

"And we can't go to the three people we've identified and ask them how they voted. That would violate the sanctity of the voting booth.

"Right now, we're talking with our lawyer to see if he can provide us with any adult supervision."

Alexander said the district will be required, at some point to post the election result, "but we don't have to validate them. We want to do the right thing, make sure the right person gets elected.

"But right now, we really don't know what to do," he said.

Both Houston and Murray were seeking the board position currently held by Jo Gridley, who decided not to run for re-election this year. Gridley's term of office up as of the board's regular board meeting on June 16.

In a statement released late Wednesday afternoon, the district said:

"MHSD announces that 91 votes were cast for the Zone 4 School Trustee election, but three votes are invalid due to the voters living outside of Zone 4. With that being said, MHSD announces that William Murray having 44 votes and CD Houston having 47 votes, the elected trustee for Zone 4 is CD Houston."

The means Houston's election would be official unless a challenge is made within 20 days.