Corbett decides to move forward with precinct recount

ST. JOSEPH COUNTY, Ind. -- Tim Corbett has decided to continue with the recount of individual precincts in St. Joseph County in the race for the St. Joseph County Sheriff.

Earlier this week, the recount commission completed its recount of absentee ballots. That left Corbett 14 votes behind Bill Redman.

Corbett's campaign team told the commission during its meeting Thursday that he wanted to continue with the recount.

This comes after a decision between Corbett's team and Redman's team that 40 of the precincts be recounted, rather than doing all of them immediately.

The chair of the commission. Jim Korpal, will randomly select 40 precincts to be recounted.

The election recount board will then go into a small portion of the more than 200 ballot machines, and by hand, recount the votes for those areas.

"[It's] a quarter of the votes. It would be random precincts from each district and each township, so it'll give everybody a good idea of what else is going on and what happened with the machine votes," he explains.

Corbett will be responsible for paying $100 per day per person for the recount.

Korpal hopes to get through at least 20 of the precincts on Monday, June 18, knowing it's a race against time. 

The recount must be completed by June 29.

"It's advantageous to them that we get this done quickly," he says. 

After the 40 precincts are recounted, there's another decision to be made.  Corbett's campaign team will have to decide if they want to pursue the rest of the more than 20,000 votes from the county.

If he decides to do so, that could require more than the current three pairs of hands on deck.

"My [court] order says to count them all. So if that's going to be the case, I'm going to go back to the judge and ask them for more people to accommodate," says Korpal. 

He is confident that the machine votes are accurate, and the true tally total will be revealed with this recount. 

While recounting the absentee ballots, the board found some votes that didn't count because people chose all of the candidates or left the ballot blank. 

With these machines, that doesn't happen.

"If the ballot is the wrong ballot or there is a problem with the ballot, the machine actually rejects the ballot," explains Korpal. "The voter is allowed to redo that ballot if if they choose."