Brenneman wins squeaker election
The Daily Inter Lake
Joe Brenneman edged out Denise Cofer by just 137 votes to claim an open Flathead County commission seat, making him the first Democrat to win a slot on the board since 1996.
Brenneman received 18,656 votes - just over 50 percent of the total cast. Cofer, the Republican candidate, got 18,519 votes, or about 49.7 percent. There were also a handful of votes for write-in candidates.
Neither candidate returned phone calls seeking comment Wednesday.
The vote stayed close throughout the drawn-out ballot count. Brenneman held a lead through much of it, but it was tough to call the race in his favor until officials finished analyzing hundreds of disputed ballots that couldn't be read by the vote-counting machine.
Election results show that Brenneman drew significant Republican support - a must-have element in a county that leans heavily to the GOP. For example, Flathead voters went for Republican candidates for president, congressman, and governor by margins around 60 percent or higher.
Voters turned out in large numbers Tuesday. Almost 39,000 voters - 86 percent of those registered to vote in Flathead County - cast ballots. That surpassed the previous record turnout of 84 percent in November 2000.
But results in the election were not known until late Wednesday afternoon as a result of several factors: a new counting system, record turnout, improperly marked ballots, difficulties processing absentee votes, a technology lapse and human error.
This was only the second election using a new optical scanning machine to count paper ballots. The first one was the primary vote in June, which had a fraction of the votes cast in the general election.
County employees finished counting the last precinct at 12:15 p.m. Wednesday. A volunteer board also worked late into the afternoon counting several hundred ballots on which the voter's choice wasn't clear to the scanning machine.
When weary election workers tallied the last votes at 3:30 p.m., Northwest Montana voters had elected eight newcomers and seven incumbents to the Legislature, approved bond issues for new schools and a new fire station, and put the first Democrat in eight years into office as a county commissioner.
Among the legislative winners were three Democrats - tripling that party's Flathead Valley representation in Helena.
"We never knew what to expect," Clerk and Recorder Paula Robinson said of the prolonged vote count. "We've never had a system like this."
The system will change again before the next election in ways aimed at alleviating or eliminating Tuesday's problems. Those changes entail an upgrade in voting technology, however, which has its own risks, and Robinson said she's also worried about losing desperately needed poll workers.
Here are complete election results (¥ denotes winner):
National
U.S. President
99 percent of precincts
¥ (i) George Bush (GOP) 58,917,663
Dick Cheney
John Kerry (Dem) 55,347,455
John Edwards
Other 1,043,000
Montana
877 of 881 precincts - 99 percent
U.S. Representative
¥ Denny Rehberg (GOP) 274,476
Tracy Velasquez (Dem) 139,772
Mike Fellows (Lib) 12,126
Governor
¥ Brian Schweitzer (Dem) 216,419
John Bohlinger
Bob Brown (GOP) 196,709
Dave Lewis
Bob Kelleher (G) 8,193
Colleen Little Thunder
Stanley Jones (Lib) 7,251
Mike Kaszula
Secretary of state
¥ Brad Johnson (GOP) 210,307
Bill Kennedy (Dem) 203,696
State auditor
¥ (i) John Morrison (Dem) 229,158
Duane Grimes (GOP) 180,474
Superintendent of public instruction
¥ Linda McCulloch (Dem) 236,874
Bob Anderson (GOP) 178,013
Supreme Court Justice No. 5
¥ Jim Nelson 211,642
Cindy Younkin 187,787
Supreme Court Justice No. 6
¥ Brian Morris 203,263
Edward McLean 154,661
Ballot issues
877 of 881 precincts - 99 percent
Constitutional Amendment 40
Weed management trust fund
¥ For 311,597
Against 100,519
Constitutional Amendment 41
Right to hunt, fish
¥ For 332,152
Against 79,745
Constitutional Amendment 42
Extending legislative
term limits
For 130,944
¥ Against 288,253
Constitutional Initiative No. 96
Marriage amendment
¥ For 282,993
Against 142,820
Initiative No. 147
Cyanide mining
For 179,799
¥ Against 246,328
Initiative No. 148
Medical marijuana
¥ For 265,496
Against 163,619
Initiative No. 149
Tobacco taxes
¥ For 270,909
Against 157,925
Flathead County
42 of 42 precincts reporting
Flathead County commissioner
¥ Joe Brenneman (Dem) 18,656
Denise Cofer (GOP) 18,519
Clerk of District Court
¥ (i) Peg Allison (GOP) 31,365
Legislature
State Senate Dist. 2
12 of 12 precincts
¥ Dan Weinberg (Dem) 4,460
Donna Maddux (GOP) 4,377
State Senate Dist. 3
13 of 13 precincts
¥ (i) Jerry O'Neil (GOP) 7,025
Vince Woodhouse (Dem) 3,014
State Senate Dist. 6
13 of 13 precincts
¥ John Brueggeman (GOP) 5,189
Cindy Willis (Dem) 3,454
Kurtis Oliverson (Con) 462
State House Dist. 1
4 of 4 precincts
¥ Ralph Heinert (GOP) 1,823
(i) Eileen Carney (Dem) 1,774
Russell Brown (Con) 146
State House Dist. 2
10 of 10 precincts
¥ (i) Rick Maedje (GOP) 2,582
Noel E. Williams (Dem) 1,852
State House Dist. 3
7 of 7 precincts
¥ (i) Dee Brown (GOP) 2,542
Linda Jaquette (Dem) 1,490
State House Dist. 4
5 of 5 precincts
¥ Mike Jopek (Dem) 2,597
Bill Beck (GOP) 2,149
State House Dist. 5
5 of 5 precincts
¥ (i) George Everett (GOP) 3,390
Samuel P. Nichol (Dem) 1,571
State House Dist. 6
8 of 8 precincts
¥ (i) Verdell Jackson (GOP) 3,257
Shannon Hanson (Dem) 1,776
State House Dist. 7
3 of 3 precincts
¥ Jon Sonju (GOP) 2,721
James Dettman (Dem) 1,131
Timothy Martin (Constitution) 217
State House Dist. 8
5 of 5 precincts
¥ (i) Tim Dowell (Dem) 2,095
Craig Witte (GOP) 1,926
State House Dist. 9
¥ William Jones (GOP) 2,862
State House Dist. 10
5 of 5 precincts
¥ (i) Bernie Olson (GOP) 3,828
Aaron Navin Bouschor (Dem) 1,200
State House Dist. 11
7 of 7 precincts
¥ Janna Taylor (GOP) 2,830
Pat Estenson (Dem) 2,004
State House Dist. 12
6 of 6 precincts - 100 percent
Rick Jore (Con) 1,556
Jeanne Windham (Dem) 1,555
Jack Cross (GOP) 1,107
Whitefish Study Commission
(top three win)
¥ Sarah P. Fitzgerald 1,572
¥ Shirley M. Jacobson 1,514
¥ Norm Nelson 1,419
Vanice Woodbeck 1,004
Local ballot issues
Whitefish resort tax extension
¥ For 2,011
Against 632
Kalispell $3 million fire station bond
¥ For 4,898
Against 2,323
Schools
School District 5
$39.8 million high school bond
26 of 26 precincts
¥ For 12,583
Against 10,116
School District 5
$10.9 million junior high bond
14 of 14 precincts
¥ For 6,917
Against 4,673
Swan River School
$867,000 bonds for new gym
¥ For 567
Against 285