(Jacob Bruns, Headline USA) A Louisiana judge has overturned the result of a disputed sheriff’s election in Caddo Parish where questions swirled about voters filling out multiple ballots after the Democrat candidate appeared to win by a single vote in an election of more than 43,000 people.
Republican John Nickelson sued after a recount of 7,700 absentee ballots still found Democrat Henry Whitehorn ahead, despite the disclosure that several voters had doubled up.
Clerk of Court Mike Spence initially downplayed the double voting, despite the impact it may have had on the outcome.
“It’s a sad situation because it’s two people who didn’t understand what they were doing,” Spence said. “This wasn’t malicious.”
However, Judge E. Joseph Bleich ruled that Whitehorn’s victory was likely due to the proven illegal votes, thus voiding the results of the election, Slay News reported.
Bleich wrote that “it was proven beyond any doubt that there were at least 11 illegal votes cast and counted,” calling it “legally impossible” to determine a winner due to the fraud.
As a result, Bleich–a registered independent–ordered that a new election would have to be held.
In response, Whitehorn lashed out at Nickelson and announced that he will appeal the decision all the way to the Louisiana Supreme Court of needed.
“I was always taught that the person with the most votes wins, even if that’s by a thousand votes or by one vote,” Whitehorn said. “But it seems as though the rules of the game are different depending on who the players are.”
He also claimed to have “won” the sheriff’s race, “not once but twice,” suggesting that Nickelson “conveniently chose to question the integrity of the election only after he lost.”
The lawsuit was initiated by Nickelson soon after the recount still determined that Whitehorn had won by one vote.
And yet parish officials only recounted absentee ballots because Louisiana’s in-person voter touchscreens do not have paper trails.
