Jansen wins by eight votes

MAT-SU -- The suspense in the race between incumbent Sara Jansen and real estate broker Kevin Sorensen for the Mat-Su Borough Assembly's District 2 seat continued into the evening Tuesday when the election victors were slated to be sworn in.

The assembly's special meeting to certify the Oct. 2 election and swear in the winners of two seats was set for 6 p.m. Tuesday. But at 6 p.m., the borough canvassing board was finishing up the final ballot count.

"The canvassing board is . . . still recounting the ballots," borough mayor Tim Anderson told the gathered audience. "We'll start the meeting as soon as we can."

The meeting was called to order at 6:30 that evening and Gerry Keeling, the chair of the canvassing board, was asked to give the election report.

Keeling explained the reasons behind the board's seemingly slow tally.

"During the canvassing work, there was a challenge for District 2," Keeling said, "so today the canvassing board hand-counted [election] precincts 9 and 23."

Keeling said two things happened during the hand count of these ballots that resulted in minor changes to the total ballot tally.

First off, Keeling said, a look at the individual ballots revealed that one additional vote had been cast for Sorensen, but the oval used to designate the choice of candidate had been marked so lightly that the count was not recorded by the Accu-Vote machine.

That vote was properly recorded for Sorensen.

But a more curious situation arose when the ballots from precinct 23 were counted. Keeling said the Accu-Vote tally showed 678 ballots counted and the physical ballot-stub records showed that 679 ballots were cast, but when the ballots were hand-counted, one additional ballot was found. Keeling said she couldn't account for why the ballot had been missed or where it came from.

When the final numbers came in, incumbent Sara Jansen took the victory with just eight votes to spare. She garnered 773 votes to Sorensen's 765.

The rest of the election went off without much of a hitch, Keeling said. The only other error that was found came from a voter who voted early at Cottonwood Creek Mall, then voted at their home precinct as well.

That never should have happened, Keeling said.

"That voter had a big red "A" beside their name," Keeling said, "but they were allowed to vote anyway."

The election results were unanimously accepted by the assembly, and borough clerk Sandra Dillon led Jansen and Bruce Bush, the winning candidate in the District 1 race, in their oaths of office during the swearing-in ceremony.

After the ceremony and reception for the newly seated Jansen and Bush, Jansen said she hopes common ground can be found between the differing viewpoints she and Sorensen represent.

"I'm certainly going to make an effort," Jansen said. "I plan to call Kevin Sorensen and . . . sit down and maybe talk about if he thinks there is some room to maybe meet in the middle. That seems the appropriate thing to do."

Jansen said the roller-coaster ride of an election forced her to take a philosophical stance on the matter.

"If it's meant to be, it'll be," Jansen said. "If it's not, you get lots of extra time and less stress in your life."

Keeping her seat on the assembly, Jansen said, will allow her to move forward on projects she worked on during her previous term.

She said she's looking forward to seeing results of soil tests at the new Sherrod Elementary School site, and will be continuing to work with model airplane enthusiasts and residents at Scott Road to help find a place where the hobbyists can fly without creating a danger or disturbance to the surrounding residents.

Jansen and Bush were congratulated by the other assembly members gathered at the table, and the meeting was brought to a close with a request by Anderson that mirrored directives given from officials in higher positions around the nation recently.

"It is time now to continue the business of the borough," Anderson said.