Rebecca Bahar-Cook. | Courtesy photo
An input error temporarily indicated Michigan State University’s Board of Trustees candidate Rebecca Bahar-Cook, a Democrat, had placed third in balloting in Tuesday’s election for two open positions.
As of 8 a.m. Friday, initial unofficial results from the Michigan Secretary of State’s Office indicated Bahar-Cook, a former Ingham County commissioner, had 2,388,312 total votes, placing third behind Republican contender Julie Maday, a member of the Novi Economic Development Corp., with 2,402,734 votes. Republican Mike Balow, a U.S. Navy veteran who ran unsuccessfully for a slot in 2022, was on top with 2,472,007 votes.
However, by 9:30 a.m., that had been corrected to show Bahar-Cook with 2,406,312 votes, placing second behind Balow, and 3,459 votes ahead of Maday.
Bahar-Cook said an error wrongly placed her out of the running.
“Guess what? It looks like I won!” Bahar-Cook posted on Facebook Thursday night.
“Allegan County recorded 20,363 votes for me on their website but the Secretary of State’s unofficial number has me only at 2,363. Check out the AP results (which matches mine). GO GREEN!” she said.
Results from Allegan County do confirm Bahar-Cook received 20,363 votes, while the Associated Press shows her placing second behind Balow, with a 3,459 vote lead over Maday with more than 99% of the votes counted.
Bahar-Cook told the Michigan Advance that she had been tracking the vote totals through the day and after seeing all of the updates had been received, was ready to accept the outcome.
“I was like, great, I lost. The end,” she said.
But Bahar-Cook said after being told to take a second look, she did just that.
“We cracked open and did a comparison looking at the counties’ websites versus the data that the Secretary of State had, and you know Allegan’s the third county [in the alphabetical listing], so that zero popped up immediately as the difference between the two,” she said.
Michigan Secretary of State spokesperson Angela Benander confirmed for the Advance that the data entry error was made by Allegan County.
Benander also confirmed a similar error with the Kent County results.
“Kent County’s first unofficial results submission was incomplete. Kent used the automatic data upload to submit their unofficial results, but they submitted result(s) without Ada and Plainfield Townships,” she said. “At that time they were still waiting for those results to come in but they submitted an incomplete data set. They are supposed to wait until the entire county is complete. They have now corrected that submission with their complete county results.”
Benander said the error resulted in a “slight increase” to Bahar-Cook’s margin.
A request for comment was sent to Maday’s campaign, but has yet to be returned.
All results are unofficial until they are canvassed at the county and then state level.
Bahar-Cook, who says she previously served as a county canvasser, said no one should come away from this issue thinking the election system is inherently flawed.
“This proves the system works, in my opinion. Because there’s going to be human errors,” she said, adding that this is exactly what the canvassing process is for.
If the results hold, Bahar-Cook will join Balow as the newest members of MSU’s Board of Trustees, replacing Democratic Trustee Dianne Byrum, who decided not to seek another term, and Republican Board Chair Dan Kelly, who was not renominated by his party.
It also means the board’s current make up of six Democrats, one Republican and one independent, will remain the same, with Balow as the lone Republican.
Bahar-Cook said her her top priority on the board will be affordability for students
“How do we keep tuition affordable and find either other revenue sources or ways to cut costs because we can’t keep doing this and remain affordable, so that tuition piece is the most important to me,” she said.
Bahar-Cook said she knows the importance of MSU being a premier research university and how that brings in quality staff and faculty that they need to teach students.
“I think maintaining that reputation as a premier research university is important. It’s important for Michigan. It’s important for our economy. Definitely important for our students,” she said.
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