Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, December 3, 1994                   TAG: 9412050050
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B1   EDITION: METRO  
SOURCE: JOEL TURNER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

COUNTY SCHOOL BOARD VOTES DOUBLE-CHECKED

She expected that a recount would confirm that she had lost a bid for the Windsor Hills seat on the Roanoke County School Board.

And it did. But not before she learned all she ever wanted to know about the recount process.

After the three-hour recount was over Friday, Merrill said she was satisfied with the outcome and believed that the results are accurate.

The recount showed Tom Leggette beat her by 20 votes, an increase of two votes over the earlier 18-vote margin in the Nov. 8 election.

Leggette's vote total remained the same, 2,994. Merrill received 2,974 votes, two fewer than reported election night.

A recording mistake cost Merrill two votes in the Oak Grove precinct.

Merrill said she hopes the recount will satisfy supporters who urged her to request it. After the election, she said, she received dozens of calls from supporters insisting on the recount.

Leggette said the results showed that county election officials did an excellent job supervising and reporting the election. The people who worked the polls deserve recognition for the job they did, he said.

Leggette and Merrill watched the election officials break the seals on the voting machines and record the vote totals.

Ronkeith Adkins, chairman of the county Electoral Board, asked both candidates to read the vote totals on each of the 17 machines.

"I wanted them to see the numbers so there would be no question about them," Adkins said.

The candidates also selected election officials to represent them at the recount of 338 paper absentee ballots. The paper ballots were stored in the Circuit Clerk's office, while the voting machines were stored in the county's Public Works Service Center.

Each voting machine has three safeguards to ensure that the totals are not changed if a recount is requested: Election officials put a seal on the doors of machines after the votes are recorded election night; the voting machines have locks; and - most importantly - there is an inside seal.

All of the inside seals were intact, but the outside seals were missing from two machines, and a third machine was unlocked. But Merrill said she had no complaints about them.

Some of the machines are old and do not lock easily, Adkins said.

"There are three safeguards, but the inside seals are the most important, and none of them were broken," Merrill said.

Public funds paid the cost of the recount because state law permits a recount if the difference in an election outcome is one-half of 1 percent of the total votes or less.

The recount cost about $330, which included $50 a day for six election officials, plus mileage reimbursement.

Election officials reported the results to Circuit Judge Kenneth Trabue, in keeping with a state law requiring that recounts be conducted under the supervision of the court. Both Merrill and Leggette told Trabue they had no objections to the recount procedure or results.