LINN — On May 23, the Secretary of State’s office responded to the election complaint filed on April 17 by Linda Rantz of Linn.

The complaint alleged that the write-in votes for the Chamois Municipal election held on April 2 were not counted according to law and asked how that situation could be corrected.

The short response from the Secretary of State’s office, signed by General Counsel Frank Jung, said, “Thank you for submitting information regarding the City of Chamois election on April 2, 2024, in Osage County.

“I agree that it appears errors were made at the polling location where the election judges did not handle write-ins as the law requires,” Jung continued. “As a result, write-ins had to still be processed, and the process used is not addressed in election laws.

“However, I did not find an election offense under Sections 115.631 through 115.631, RSMo,” he concluded. “As such, I am unable to refer this matter to the prosecuting attorney and will be closing out this complaint.”

Based on that response, the complaint’s second point, the question of how to cure the counting of invalid write-in votes when the law is not followed, does not seem to have been addressed.

“While the (Secretary of State) and his staff seem unable to provide an answer,” said Rantz, “I came across it myself in the statutes subsequent to filing the complaint.”

Statute 115.600 provides the process: “Recount or new election, procedure — petition by election authority. “The election authority, if convinced that errors of omission or commission have occurred on the part of the election authority, election judges, or any election personnel in the conduct of an election, may petition the circuit court for a recount or a new election and the court is authorized to order a new election if the evidence provided demonstrates that the irregularities were sufficient to cast doubt on the outcome of the election.”

Osage County Clerk Nicci Kammerich said no one from the Secretary of State’s office has contacted her office regarding this matter, and she does not intend to pursue it. Kammerich said she believes the statutes used to determine how the ballots were counted are applicable and sufficient; however, the ballots were counted both with and without the votes in question. She asserted that including the votes in question did not affect the outcome of this specific election.

Rantz pointed out that any flaw in the election process can be exploited. “Even though the clerk stated the results were the same whether the write-ins were added in or not, that information was not included in the note on the official election results,” she said. “It might be reassuring to Osage County voters to have the Chamois ballots recounted for transparency.”

Both Kammerich and Rantz questioned how the Secretary of State’s office could issue a response without contacting the election authority that conducted the election for information about how the votes were processed and what statutes were used as justification.