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Dunklin County Officials Requesting New Election For House Seat

David Benbennick
/
WikiMedia Commons

Election officials in Missouri’s Bootheel are requesting a new election for the Missouri House’s 150th district.

On the November 12 election, ballots for the 150th district were mistakenly distributed to the neighboring 152nd district.

Carol Hinesly is the Dunklin County Clerk. She says the distribution errors were caused by confusion over redistricting.

“It’s mostly because of that new line dividing 150 and 152. But it’s all just right there in Campbell because that’s where there’s a definite change, just right there,” Hinesly said. “The rest of it is explanatory from the north and it’s explanatory all the way down to the bottom of Dunklin County. So it’s just right there where the line meets.”

Dunklin County Prosecuting Attorney Stephen Sokoloff filed a petition last Wednesday in Circuit County Court requesting a new election.

Sokoloff says after consulting with the Secretary of State’s office, officials have decided a new election is their only option.

“Problem is, that there is not anything else to be done, because the number of mis-votes was almost four times the amount of the differential,” Sokoloff said. “Given that there’s no way to determine what individuals received ballots for the wrong race and retrieved those particular ballots out of there and count it again, there’s just not anything else to do.”

After the November election, Republican Kent Hampton was reported to have defeated Democrat Tom Todd by 116 votes to gain the 150th District House seat.

Now, the race has been declared “undetermined” due to the pending litigation. The date for the court hearing has not yet been determined.

Samantha Rinehart was a student reporter for KRCU from 2012-2013.