A waiting game: Thirty-two ballots could keep Place 5 candidates from runoff

Nov 5 2009 - 1:05am | Amanda Venable

The winner of the Place 5 City Council seat has yet to be determined, but officials say a runoff election may not be necessary.

The Hays County Elections Office is waiting on 32 ballots coming in from residents living outside the country, which could be all candidate Ryan Thomason needs to clinch the seat.

Thomason needed three votes to avoid a runoff with Lisa Marie Coppoletta based on early voting and Election Day results. Thomason is 0.1 percent of the votes shy of winning. He will have to wait until Monday to hear if there will be another round of elections.

“It would be an entirely different type of election,” Thomason said. “Everyone is in a state of limbo with the out-of-country ballots yet to be counted.”

Coppoletta received 26 percent of the vote, which is two percent more than candidate Shaune Maycock. Thomason needed 50 percent plus one of the votes to win Place 5.

Joyce Cowan, Hays County elections administrator, said her office staff is double-checking results and waiting for the 32 ballots to come in.

The election office must wait five days for the ballots to reach the city’s jurisdiction by law. She said a runoff is still a possibility.

“Sunday is the last day,” Cowan said. “We will check the mail on Monday. If we have any ballots that have been returned… We will count them and the results could change.”

A runoff date has not been set.

Coppoletta declined to comment on Tuesday’s results.

“I believe the most professional way to proceed is to wait for Ms. Cowan to do her job as elections admisitrator before commenting,” Coppoletta said.

Thomason said he anticipated the possibility of entering a runoff with Coppoletta. Thomason, who received 54 percent of the early vote, said he was confident of a win, however.

“I haven’t looked at the list (of voters),” Thomason said. “I was joking I was going to send everyone the list to see who they know who didn’t vote. Then (I was going to) mail them a bill of what it will cost for this runoff — everyone could have found three people to vote.”

About 8 percent of registered voters in Hays County cast a ballot. Cowan said the low turnout is not uncharacteristic of odd-numbered years with constitutional amendments. Hays County is slightly above average in terms of voter turnout, she said.

“If it does go into a runoff, I don’t think it will be as intense, and it will be a smaller turnout than what we saw Tuesday,” Thomason said.

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