CHARLESTON, W.Va. — An incumbent judge in Logan County has lost his bid to overturn election results.
Logan Circuit Judge Douglas Witten challenged the results of last spring’s election in which the results showed he had been defeated by challenger Joshua Butcher.
Witten claimed there were irregularities in three precincts that should have invalidated the results in those. Doing so would have tipped the election in his favor.
A special court of three members heard evidence and ruled against Witten. The ruling was released Monday.
The panel concluded that there were errors made in three precincts but they “did not rise to the level of demonstrating that their actions amounted to misconduct affecting the result of the election or rendering it unfair.”
Butcher defeated Witten by 59 votes in the spring — 4,604 to 4,545.
Butcher then contested the election on June 6. He contended there were irregularities in three precincts — that in the Bulwark precinct, poll workers couldn’t account for 10 votes, that in Sharples none of the poll workers took their election oath, and that in Lane the “no electioneering signs” were not far enough away from the precinct and that Butcher’s wife campaigned too close on Election Day.
The special court heard evidence in the contested election on Aug. 23. The court’s included one representative named by Butcher (former U.S. Attorney Booth Goodwin), one by Witten (James Counts, the treasurer of his campaign) and another named by Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin (Charleston lawyer James S. Arnold).
The three-member court concluded that Witten proved a number of omissions and errors.
“However, we do not conclude that those omissions and errors amounted to misconduct which either prevented the free expression of the voters at the Bulwark and Sharples precincts or affected the result of the nonpartisan election,” the court wrote.
In Lane, the majority of the special court concluded that the failure to exactly measure the 300-foot no electioneering zone was not misconduct.
“The majority would not disenfranchise the voters who cast 468 votes in the Lane precinct when the electioneering at issue occurred outside of the boundaries of the incorrectly drawn, restricted area,” according to the decision.
One member of the panel, John Counts, dissented on the Lane precinct ruling and recommended disregarding all the results from that precinct — which would have overturned the election in favor of Witten.