GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — Unofficial election results in two unrelated Michigan races — one for the state House, another for the Michigan State University Board of Trustees — are changing after votes were discovered missing from Battle Creek and Allegan County.
In Battle Creek, there was a programming error, the Michigan Secretary of State’s Office confirmed.
The Detroit News reports that two sets of results should have been combined, but instead, the first set of results was replaced by the second set of results. Because of the error, thousands of votes were missing from the city’s initial unofficial election results, the report says. The Calhoun County Clerk’s Office said initially, about 2,800 absentee ballots were not counted, according to the Detroit News.
Updated results from Friday afternoon indicate a much closer state House race between Republican Steve Frisbie and state Rep. Jim Haadsma, D-Battle Creek, the Detroit News reports: The race was previously called in Frisbie’s favor, with initial numbers showing Frisbie ahead by nearly 1,400 votes — but in the updated results, Frisbie is ahead by just 58 votes. Such a thin margin could trigger a recount, according to the report.
“It is typical for the canvassing process to identify these kinds of issues and correct them,” Michigan Department of State spokesperson Angela Benander wrote in an email to News 8. “That’s why we emphasize that these are unofficial results until the canvass is complete and results are certified.”
In the race for the MSU Board of Trustees, an apparent data entry error caused the Allegan County Clerk’s Office to underreport the vote total for Democrat Rebecca Bahar-Cook by 20,000, according to a report from the Lansing State Journal.
Two seats on the board are open, and one race has been called for Republican Mike Balow. The 20,000 additional votes could change who takes the second seat, the Lansing State Journal reports: Though Republican Julie Maday was initially ahead of Bahar-Cook, updated unofficial results show Bahar-Cook in the lead as of Friday afternoon.