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Recount Certifies O'Brien Senate Win

WMUK

Portage Republican Margaret O’Brien will represent Kalamazoo County in the state Senate. That’s the result of a three-day hand recount of votes in the 20th District that ended Wednesday. It found that O’Brien defeated Kalamazoo Democrat Sean McCann by 61 votes. That’s two more votes for O’Brien than in the official results certified by state and local officials after the election in November. The recount found 36,645 votes for O'Brien; 36,584 for McCann; and 7,171 for Libertarian Lorence Wenke.

McCann asked for the recount because of the extremely narrow margin. McCann says he accepts the result of the recount but adds that ballots in seven precincts could not be recounted because of “errors.” McCann says those problems included, in some cases, failure to secure ballots after voting ended on Election Night.

According to McCann, Libertarian and former Republican state representative Lorence Wenke of Gull Lake lost 99 votes from his earlier tally in the recount. It involved more than 30 county and local election officials who went through more than 82,000 ballots by hand.

Andy Robins has been WMUK's News Director since 1998 and a broadcast journalist for over 24 years. He joined WMUK's staff in 1985. Under his direction, WMUK has received numerous awards for news reporting.