JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — County clerks around the state were required to submit certified election results to the Missouri Secretary of State’s office by Tuesday.
Election officials, along with many Missourians, have their eyes on a constitutional amendment where the margin continues to narrow.
Once county clerks send their official numbers in, it’s then the secretary of state’s turn to certify results. As of now, even the state’s top election official is expecting the final tally of votes for Amendment 2, sports betting, to be well within the margin of a recount.
“Most people think of the results on election night as, ‘Oh, there we have it,'” Jay Ashcroft said. “Technically, we don’t. Those aren’t official results.”
Even after election day, county clerks must accept ballots from overseas military voters and tally any valid provision ballots.
“That can have an impact on how close or how wide the margin is for these elections,” Boone County Clerk Brianna Lennon said. “What we’re seeing is a lot of these made the race tighter.”
With the general election in the rearview mirror, results must be certified. Lennon said after verifying results, in her county there were an additional 243 “yes” votes and 115 “no” votes for Amendment 2.
“I definitely think it’s still a close race, probably closer than it was before,” Lennon said.
Under Amendment 2, each of the state’s six professional sports teams could create a sports betting location near its stadium. Each of the state’s six casino companies could also open retail sportsbooks and offer an online platform.
According to Winning for Missouri Education, the campaign that gathered signatures and put the question on the ballot, profits would be taxed at 10%.
Once verified by the counties, the secretary of state has until Dec. 10 to certify those results. It’s after those numbers are finalized that a recount can be requested.
“I expect that when we’re done with the certification process it will still be within the margin of error for them to be able to request a recount, but I don’t know if they will,” Ashcroft said.
To qualify for a recount, the difference in the vote must be within 0.5%. Ashcroft said a recount must be requested by someone representing the campaign against the legalization of sports betting.
Another county reporting a large increase in ballots cast is Christian County. According to the secretary of state’s office, on election night, the clerk’s office reported 40,622 ballots cast for Amendment 2. Certified results from the county’s website showed a total of 50,275 ballots cast for the measure.
“It will involve us having to go through and touch all the ballots again, and in this county we had over 90,000 ballots cast,” Lennon said. “It’s not a short process.”
The last statewide recount for a ballot measure was in 2014, known as the Right to Farm amendment.
As for Amendment 2, the campaign in opposition to Amendment 2, Missourians Against the Deceptive Online Gambling Amendment, said it is not planning on requesting a recount at this time.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
