Sumner’s City Council race recount hands seat to the challenger
Seven votes determined a Sumner City Council race, ousting the incumbent after a mandatory recount on Dec. 3.
Charla Neuman won the Position 7 seat with a .32 percent margin, according to the Pierce County Auditor’s Office. The Pierce County Canvassing Board certified the result on Dec. 4.
Neuman received 1,095 votes while 1,088 votes were cast for incumbent, Earle Stuard.
Neuman is a government affairs and public relations consultant and made traffic, senior housing and transparency priorities in her campaign.
The first two days following the election, Stuard carried the race. Neuman’s votes surged on the third day, and she kept a narrow lead. She decided to chase the 20 ballots with signature errors to close the gap. The Auditor’s Office publishes a list of voters who submitted ballots that contained signature errors. Candidates in narrow races can “chase the ballots” by reaching out to the voters to sign forms addressing the signature problems.
Neuman said she successfully convinced four voters who she was confident voted for her to submit their forms.
“As long as I did everything possible, I stood a chance,” she told The Herald. “When I thought I lost, I still thought this is still democracy at its best. I hope that happens everywhere, where candidates have to work to earn votes.”
The votes were recounted by machine as required by state law. The recount threshold is less than one-half of 1 percent of total votes.
Bethel School District, Seat 2 also was up for recount. Of the 23,111 votes cast in the race, John Manning won by 76 votes.
Three other Sumner City Council races were uncontested, landing incumbents Patrick Reed, Cindi Hochstatter, and Curt Brown back in their seats.
This story was originally published December 7, 2019 at 7:00 AM.
