No decision yet on recount in Assembly 5 race

PALMER — A ballot recount could still be in the cards for the District 5 Assembly seat race as candidate Clayton ‘Mokie’ Tew waits for advice from his campaign advisers.

“I’m very inexperienced with all of this, so the powers that be are all talking about it right now and they’re going to let me know what to do,” Tew said Wednesday afternoon. "I don’t want to waste a bunch of time and effort or anything for nothing — that’s crazy.”

Tew was unsure as to when he would be making that decision. He has until the afternoon of Oct. 17 to request the recount before the election results are certified and made official that evening. Doing so will cost Tew $150 per requested precinct recount. Four precincts voted in the Assembly 5 race, which would total $600.

Until Tuesday afternoon, Tew held a 20 vote lead in the race against incumbent Dan Mayfield for the Big Lake area seat. But that lead reversed itself after absentee votes were counted. Mayfield now is instead up by 18 votes, or 695-677.

Tew stopped short of accusing Borough election officials of tampering with the results, but did say he believes some of the Borough’s leadership to be corrupt.

“Just the overall corruption of the Borough,” he said. “It would not be unlikely — you get where I’m going?”

A longtime local businessman, Tew may be a familiar name to some because the local government contracts held by his business, Tew’s Inc., have been plagued by controversy and accusations of mismanagement from both the borough and state governments. He said those problems have shown him examples of inequity and mismanagement in how contracts are handled and rules are applied.

If he does pull ahead in the end, Tew said neither his contract history nor his feelings about potential Borough government corruption will color his work on the the Assembly.

“There’s other good people on the Assembly — that’s a good thing,” he said. “The Assembly is not the Borough, you know.”

Mayfield said he does not believe a recount will change the election’s outcome.

“I have entire faith in Borough employees and in the election process,” he said. “I sincerely doubt (a recount) would change it.”