A Benton City businessman paid for a recount in City Council race. Here are the results

A Benton City businessman continues to trail an incumbent councilman by 13 votes after a privately financed recount Monday.

Benton County elections officials recounted about 600 ballots in the race between Alex Weber and David Sandretto and didn’t find any change in the result, said Amanda Hatfield, elections manager.

The difference between the two candidates wasn’t enough to trigger an automatic, county-paid recount. An automatic recount is triggered when two candidates are separated by fewer than 2,000 votes and that number is 0.5% of the votes they received.

In this case, those 13 votes accounted for a more than 2% split between the candidates.

Sandretto led his opponent with 50.7% of the more than 600 votes to Weber’s 48.6%.

Weber, who owns a financial consulting firm, paid a $150 deposit and will need to cover the county’s cost for the recount. It’s uncertain what the total will be.

The close race came as voters ousted one incumbent City Council member and elected a newcomer to another spot. And that followed an unsuccessful attempt to adopt a city manager system of government.

After the initial count, Weber was leading the race, but had slipped behind as more votes were counted.

The race itself was marked by a legal challenge to whether Weber lived in the city. After a lengthy hearing that brought a number of residents and city officials to testify, Judge Cameron Mitchell ruled there wasn’t enough evidence to show that he wasn’t living in Benton City.

Both candidates said they were looking for change in the small town of about 3,300 people west of West Richland.

While automatic recounts are not common, they do happen from time to time.

Last year, a tight primary race between then Benton County Commissioner Jim Beaver and challenger Joe Lusignan triggered a recount. In 17 years, that was the first time Hatfield had seen a candidate request a recount.

The canvassing board, which is made up of representatives from the commissioners’, auditor’s and prosecutor’s offices, is expected to finalize the results.

This story was originally published December 6, 2021 at 2:58 PM.