OTTAWA COUNTY, Mich. — Ottawa County Commissioner Roger Belknap is requesting a recount following the results of the August primary election.
Two weeks ago, there was a rematch between Commissioner Belknap and Phil Kuyers, which was two years in the making. According to county records from this past election, Kuyers won by more than a thousand votes.
Through a Freedom of Information request, FOX 17 has learned that Belknap cites two issues that led to his request for a recount. He has also deposited $5,000 to see if these issues impacted his race results.
- Screenshots show he had more votes than his opponent.
- Complications and outages of online reporting.
County Clerk Justin Roebuck shared on social media that the Ottawa County Election Results webpage “experienced high traffic and a large activity load, causing the site to become temporarily unavailable.”
He did add that “no vote totals were affected by the temporary website outage.”
Belknap, an Ottawa Impact member, has been a majority member of the Board of Commissioners for almost two years.
During the majority's tenure, they have made several controversial decisions, including hiring and firing county administrators and potential cuts to the health department’s 2024 budget.
After the results of this past primary, the OI members will lose out on their majority.
County records show that fellow OI member Commissioner Gretchen Cosby lost more than 2,100 votes to James Barry.
That wasn’t the only loss their members faced following the results from two weeks ago. Rachel Atwood, Jason Koert and Lucy Ebel lost their bids to appear in the November general election.
Chairperson Joe Moss, Vice-Chairperson Sylvia Rhodea, Allison Miedema and Kendra Wenzel won their primary races. These OI members will face off against Democratic challengers in a few months.
g Content AppImages FOIA 2024 AUG 08-20-2024!04!50-32-PM-Recount Petition R.belknap001 by WXMI on Scribd
g Content AppImages FOIA 2024 AUG 08-20-2024!04!50-32-PM-Recount Petition R.belknap002 by WXMI on Scribd
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