MISSOULA — Even though all ballots have been counted from Tuesday’s election, the results will not be finalized until November 20, 2023.
Missoula County Elections Administrator Bradley Seaman said that while his office was very busy on Tuesday, the operations went smoothly.
Despite less than half of Missoula's ballots being returned, Seaman says the county still had a higher turnout than other counties across Montana. Less than 25,000 of the nearly 56,000 registered voters cast ballots in the election.
The work isn't done yet for local election officials as one Missoula ward could be up for a recount — which also happened in that ward exactly four years ago.
"Every recount is a hand count of those ballots. So, there will be a great process that we go through. It's very, very similar to other recounts we've done in the past,” Seaman explained. “In the last school election, we did a small recount for a bond issue, and in Ward 6 four years ago, we did a recount on the Ward 6 councilperson race."
The Ward 6 race is between incumbent Sandra Vasecka and Sean Patrick McCoy with the two candidates separated by only five votes.
