An hour and a half of recounting ballots from the May 6 election produced disappointing results for the mayor of Alexandria.
Mayor Sean Barnes was on hand on May 27 as the Licking County Board of Elections staff did an official hand recount of ballots cast in the village, and the final tally on the Village of Alexandria income-tax question was the same: 58-58.
And that, according to Elections Board Director Brian Mead, means that the issue was not approved.
“The law requires a majority vote for an issue to pass,” he said, unlike when a race between candidates results in a tie and the race is decided by a coin toss.
Barnes said he is disappointed by the results, and said that village officials will have to make difficult decisions about managing village funds without the additional $90,000 the income tax would have generated.
“It’s very disappointing,” Barnes said of the official recount results. “It was really tough to watch.”
Without that additional funding, the village administration and council will have to make difficult decisions about how to spend existing funds and where to make cuts going into 2026.
Development pressures resulting from rapid growth in western Licking County require quick action to preserve the character of the small town, population 500, and the rural character of the surrounding St. Albans Township, Barnes said.
Updating development plans are vital to that process, he said, and doing that is likely to require shifting some village funds from other priorities and making cuts.
Barnes said he expects that the village council will ask voters to reconsider the tax question. That could happen during the Nov. 6 election, but Barnes noted that the ballot will be full of other races and issues, so the village might also wait to revisit the issue in the spring of 2026.
Of particular interest in Alexandria, voters in both the village and St. Albans township will be asked in November to consider a merger of the township and village, which is another part of the strategy to manage growth and development.
In addition to being asked to approve the merger, the voters will be asked to vote for a mayor and council members for the merged village and township if the merger is approved. Candidates for those positions have until 4 p.m. on Aug. 6 to file petitions to run for those offices.
Voters had been asked on May 6 to approve increasing the income tax by a half a percent to 1.5% from 1%. Village leaders sought the increase, Barnes said, to support planning and growth management efforts, street maintenance and the relatively new police department.
On election day, it appeared that the levy would win by one vote – 58 to 57, according to unofficial results on Election Day.
But Mead cautioned the next day that late-arriving absentee ballots and provisional ballots had not yet been counted at that time, and that they could change the results.
| Read more: Alexandria residents approve income tax levy increase by 1 vote, preliminary results show
In the end, one provisional ballot against the levy changed the results to a tie. That ballot was cast by an active, registered voter who had lived nearby in St. Albans Township.
“The voter was in the township, moved into the village before the election and had not updated the address by Election Day,” said Tess Wigginton, deputy director of the Elections Board.
Mead said a second provisional ballot was not counted because it was cast by someone who was not a registered voter.
He said the recount shows the diligence and care taken by the elections board staff to ensure accurate results. It also shows that the process works – and that every vote counts, he said.
A total of 116 of Alexandria’s 344 registered voters cast ballots in the election – about 34%, and a much higher percentage than the overall turnout of about 14% in Licking County.
Alan Miller writes for TheReportingProject.org, the nonprofit news organization of Denison University’s Journalism program, which is supported by generous donations from readers. Sign up for The Reporting Project newsletter here.