Latah County election officials will recount every ballot cast in last week's election after discovering that 2,342 votes never made it into the unofficial totals posted on election night. The missing results sat on a USB drive of early votes from the Latah County Fairgrounds that was uploaded by the county clerk's office but never reached the Idaho Secretary of State's reporting system, according to the Idaho Statesman.
The recount is set for 9:30 a.m. Pacific Time on Tuesday at the Latah County Courthouse in Moscow, with a team from the Idaho Secretary of State's Office overseeing the process, as reported by Idaho News 6. Idaho keeps a paper record of every vote, and Secretary of State Phil McGrane said officials will recount all original ballots rather than simply reinserting the missing results. The session is open to public observation, and under Idaho law, candidates named on the ballot for a contested office — or their representatives — may watch the count, along with any other interested member of the public, per a statute published by the Idaho State Legislature.
A Fairgrounds Upload That Never Landed
County tabulation machines did count the ballots in question, but results from a portion of early voting were never fully transferred into the statewide system used to publish results, Idaho News 6 reported. The Latah County Clerk's Office caught the discrepancy during a routine review ahead of the official county canvass, the step in which election results are certified as official, according to the same report.
Julie Fry, the elected Republican Latah County clerk who is seeking reelection in a contested race, said she realized the error last Friday and immediately informed the Secretary of State's office, per the Idaho Statesman's reporting. Fry said the error should not have happened and that a full recount would help ensure accurate results. Boise State Public Radio has reported that Fry did not personally count the votes herself.
McGrane Calls It Significant but Not a Sign of Fraud
McGrane, Idaho's Republican secretary of state, called the discrepancy significant and said his office was taking it very seriously, according to Idaho Education News. He said every indication was that the election itself was conducted properly, and that the mistake occurred when results were shared publicly — language the Idaho Secretary of State's Office has also used to characterize the problem as a procedural error in election-night reporting rather than a flaw in vote counting. The Idaho state election agency plans to work with Latah County to determine the cause of the upload failure and prevent it from happening again.
An initial review by the Secretary of State's office indicated that adding the unreported votes would not change the outcome of any races, the Idaho Statesman reported. But a separate Boise State Public Radio report said the votes in question could potentially change the outcome of several races, including all three state legislative seats and both county commission seats that were on the ballot. The discrepancy could affect county races for two commissioner seats, as well as the clerk and treasurer contests, according to the Idaho Capital Sun.
A Commissioner Candidate Demands Answers
Laura Heinse, a Democratic candidate for Latah County commissioner, submitted a complaint to McGrane requesting a full recount of ballots cast in her race, per the Idaho Capital Sun. Initial unofficial results showed Heinse trailing Republican Dan Schoenberg by nearly 200 votes in the District 2 race. Heinse also asked McGrane for a complete, documented timeline establishing when the error was discovered, who knew about it, and when corrective actions occurred, the Idaho Statesman reported.
Results from last week's election remain unofficial until certified by the state board of canvassers, which is scheduled to meet November 24, according to the Idaho Capital Sun. The newspaper also noted that University of Idaho students waited in lines for hours to vote in Latah County during the 2024 presidential election, underscoring the county's history of high-turnout, closely watched contests.
Not the Only County With Missing Ballots
Latah County is not alone in grappling with a last-minute ballot discovery this election cycle. In Iowa, Johnson County officials found a box of 2,017 ballots that had not been included in the county's unofficial results released on Nov. 3, according to the Iowa City Press-Citizen. The Iowa Secretary of State's Office ordered a recount covering 36,000 absentee ballots, which ultimately did not change the outcome of any local or state races. Johnson County's auditor's office said afterward that it was updating its absentee ballot counting procedures to make sure the mistake doesn't happen again.
