Franklin Foil has narrowly edged out fellow Republican Steve Carter for the No. 2 spot in the Senate District 16 runoff against Democrat primary winner Beverly Brooks Thompson by a total of four votes.
Following a nearly six-hour hand recount at City Hall today of more than 1,100 paper ballots that were either mailed, faxed in or filled out in person on election day, East Baton Rouge Parish Commissioner of Elections Steve Rayborn announced that Foil had received 605 paper votes to Carter’s 448, putting him narrowly in the lead.
Heading into today’s recount, the two candidates were believed to be evenly tied, with 12,522 total votes each, according to the Louisiana Secretary of State’s office. Of those, 451 scanned paper votes had supposedly gone to Carter, while 604 had gone to Foil.
On the recount, Foil gained one vote while Carter lost three. A handful of ballots were thrown out because they were marked twice or left blank.
Carter attorney Josh Melder says he respects the process but couldn’t comment until speaking to Carter.
An attorney for Foil, who was on hand at City Hall all day to monitor the recount—along with attorneys and representatives for all three candidates—says he is satisfied with the results.
“Eagle Scout, Navy Captain, Navy Judge Franklin Foil respects the process and it works—without a judgeship being bought and paid for,” says attorney Jack Whitehead.
Whitehead’s remark is in reference to an offer, first reported Wednesday by Daily Report, that GOP political operative and Carter supporter Lane Grigsby reached out to Foil’s campaign Sunday night, suggesting he would support Foil in a future judicial election if Foil would drop out of the race to increase the likelihood of the seat remaining in Republican hands.
Today’s drama, coming on the heels of the Grigsby bombshell, was the latest development in an election that has been remarkable—even by Louisiana standards.
On election night, Secretary of State Kyle Ardoin’s office initially reported Franklin had edged out Carter by eight votes to make the runoff. On Sunday, however, Ardoin called the candidates to report there had been an error in the scanning process and that upon rescanning, Carter and Franklin were tied.
Ardoin’s office initially attributed the error to problems with the ballots and scanners. They later said a batch of the paper ballots had been mistakenly scanned twice. The discrepancy has yet to be clarified or explained.
