Welch won't seek recount, concedes race

In a turn of events, Martin City Republican Sandy Welch has conceded the race for Montana Superintendent of Public Instruction four days after a district court judge ordered a recount.

Welch said Tuesday, Dec. 11, that the campaign had more pledges “than cash in hand” in order to make the 5 p.m. deadline to post a $115,000 bond to cover the base costs of the recount. She noted that she had plenty of volunteers willing to watch over the recount.

Welch said the first call she made was to her Democratic opponent, OPI incumbent Denise Juneau, conceding the race.

Welch lost to Juneau by 2,231 votes out of 468,563 votes cast, but Welch claimed there were still problems with the ballot-counting process and the machines the state used.

She had specifically pointed to problems in the use of Model 650 ballot-counting machines. In Lewis and Clark County, the Model 650 machines also had a software error, which was validated by the software provider, Welch claimed Dec. 6.

In that case, a coding error gave Democrat Ron Szabo 25 votes and Republican incumbent Rick Ripley zero votes in one precinct in the race for Montana Senate District 9. Ripley won the election in a landslide.

That error was caught in a later canvass of the votes, Lewis and Clark County election supervisor Marilyn Bracken said. Bracken said the company that makes the ballot machines checked all the other races and said they were accurate.

Welch, however, had other concerns, particularly with ballots that jammed or were unacceptably marked.

“I hope the Secretary of State will address these problems before the next election,” Welch said Tuesday.

Bracken said her office has been using the Model 650 machine for several years without a problem. If a statewide recount had happened, the ballots would have been counted by hand.

Welch said she will consider running again in the future.

“Absolutely,” she said. “I had a wonderful time … I wouldn’t trade it for the world.”