There will be a recount next week to determine whether Whitehall City Council member Lori Elmore will retain her seat, after the Franklin County Board of Elections ultimately determined that she won by eight votes.
Elmore, along with Whitehall Mayor Michael Bivens and at-large Council member Amy Harcar, were targeted for removal in a special recall election that was held on June 23. Whitehall residents voted to keep Bivens and Harcar in their respective seats, while Elmore’s fate was uncertain after unofficial results showed that she was defeated in the election by just six votes.
However, there were 29 provisional ballots, one overseas ballot and one ballot with an envelope error that remained to be counted after the unofficial results were reported.
The county Board of Elections on June 29 certified the results of the election and approved 24 of the 29 provisional ballots. Five of them were rejected during the meeting, two because the voters did not have a proper photo ID and three others because the people who cast the ballots were not registered to vote in Ohio.
According to the official results, Elmore received 1,094 “yes” votes to retain her seat on City Council, while there were 1,086 “no” votes seeking her ouster. Meanwhile,1,146 voters said “yes” to keeping Bivens as mayor, and there were 1,113 “yes” votes in favor of Harcar keeping her seat on City Council.
The recount will take place on July 7.
“Thank you to the residents of Whitehall,” Elmore said in a prepared announcement after the results were certified. “I am grateful for your trust in my leadership as a member of Whitehall City Council. I will continue giving you the best of me. As I stated before, what the Lord has for me is for me, and I will continue to lift up this great city, in whatever capacity the Lord has for me. We now wait for the official results of the final recount on July 7.”
Bivens also commended Elmore on her victory and said that her record “speaks for itself.”
“I stand with [Elmore] as this goes to a recount,” Bivens said. “We continue to put our focus on transparency, community engagement, infrastructure, neighborhoods, and uplifting the residents of Whitehall.”
“Council member Elmore stands on a solid record as part of her service as a Whitehall City Council member since 2017,” Harcar said. “Her commitment, her leadership, her resolve to help make Whitehall better for ALL residents are second to none.”
The Dispatch reached out to Holly Stein, one of the women involved in the recall attempt, for comment on the results from the Board of Elections. She did not answer her phone, and The Dispatch was unable to leave a voicemail due to the mailbox being full.
Reporter Shahid Meighan can be reached at smeighan@dispatch.com, at ShahidMeighan on X, and at shahidthereporter.dispatch.com on Bluesky.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Whitehall Council member Lori Elmore retains seat in certified vote, but recount planned
Reporting by Shahid Meighan, Columbus Dispatch / The Columbus Dispatch
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Shahid Meighan, Columbus Dispatch | USA TODAY Network
