After over five hours of recounting ballots, the Cleveland County Election Board certified the Ward 5 runoff election results Wednesday evening, confirming Michael Nash defeated Ward 5 Councilmember Rarchar Tortorello by 29 votes.
On Monday, Tortorello filed a petition for a vote recount after losing a runoff election between him and Nash on April 4. On Wednesday, about a dozen people recounted the votes by hand for over five hours at the Cleveland County Courthouse in Judge Michael Tupper's chambers.
After all votes were counted, the margin between Nash and Tortorello remained at 29 votes with Nash receiving 985 votes and Tortorello receiving 956.
Tortorello’s attorney, Richard Labarthe, requested to file a petition alleging irregularities in the votes. Labarthe said Tortorello’s legal team identified 212 anomalies in the voter count, including alleged votes from deceased persons and votes from Ward 6 residents.
Kristina Bell, a civil assistant district attorney at the Cleveland County District Attorney's office, argued it was too late for Tortorello to file a petition alleging irregularities as the deadline was by 5 p.m. Friday, April 7, citing Oklahoma Statute Title 26 Section 8-109.
Tortorello’s other attorney, Alexey Tarasov, said Tortorello’s team did not have enough time between the day of the election and the deadline to file a petition alleging irregularities to discover evidence of voter fraud because the alleged evidence was not available to Tortorello’s team until Tuesday.
After hearing arguments from Bell and Tortorello’s legal teams, Tupper called Tortorello’s request for a petition alleging irregularities untimely, referencing Oklahoma Supreme Court Case Henderson v. Maley. In the 1991 court case, the Supreme Court ruled that a petition challenging the correctness of the alleged results of an election is required to be filed by 5 p.m. the Friday following the election.
In Henderson v. Maley, William H. Henderson argued a petition for irregularities was appropriate to be filed later because the alleged irregularities were not discovered prior to the deadline. The Supreme Court ruled the argument had no merit.
Tupper said the Cleveland County District Court doesn’t have the power to hear contests on timely filing and lacks the authority to hear the matters that were raised in the untimely petition.
“Although it may be maddening, and frustrating, it's still democracy in action,” Labarthe said. “There’s always a winner and a loser.”
After hearing arguments, the Cleveland County Election Board certified the election results, declaring Nash winner of the Ward 5 Norman City Council seat.
Nash told OU Daily he’s grateful for those who supported him throughout his campaign.
“It was nice to know (Tortorello) had to listen to my name spoken 985 more times,” Nash said. “Hopefully it doesn’t set a precedent that any time you lose an election, you immediately start launching any kind of request to recount anything to disrupt the process.”
This story was edited by Karoline Leonard and Jazz Wolfe.
