Recount in Commissioner Race - KXNet - Bismarck/Minot/Williston/Dickinson

Recount in Commissioner Race

There'll be a recount of the votes in the race for Ward County Commissioner.

Last week's election finished with only 81 votes deciding who would win the third-and-final seat on the commission.

Shelly Weppler was ahead of Jim Lee by that slim margin.

And today, Lee filed paperwork with the county, asking that the ballots be recounted.

Lee says part of the reason is the odd way the votes were reported - because the very first report of votes erroneously said all 19 precincts were reporting.

Jim Lee, County Commissioner Candidate) "The thing that was kind of strange and caused some people to encourage me to do this was because of the strange way the votes came in that night and were tabulated. I've worked a lot of elections when I wasn't on the ballot to help count the votes and this was really strange and people said something seems not right so they encouraged me to do this."

County Auditor Devra Smestad says the recount will begin Monday morning at the courthouse and could last most of the week.

Because the margin between Weppler and Lee is not small-enough for an automatic recount, Lee must pay the costs of the recount.