Cache Creek council election recount finds miscounted tiebreaking vote

CACHE CREEK, B.C. — It came down to a single miscounted vote to decide who was in second place in the race for a seat in Cache Creek’s council chambers.

Kelly Debert and David Dubois were initially tied with 298 votes each, while the gap between Carmen Ranta (179 votes) in fourth and Karla Hein (175 votes) in fifth place for the final council seat was just four votes.

“Our election count had no spoiled ballots and no rejected ballots, and all of our totals matched. Even so, the Chief Election Officer follows a practice of recounting any race where the gap is fewer than 10 votes,” said the Village of Cache Creek in a statement.

“This is a local practice, not a legal requirement, and was communicated to the candidates in advance of the election so that they knew our threshold. It gives everyone added confidence in the result.”