No recount needed in Mahoning County prosecutor's race
After a few tight races in this year's election, the Mahoning County Board of Elections certified the election results Tuesday evening.
This means any close races, including the Mahoning County prosecutor's race weren't close enough to require an automatic recount.
The county was hesitant to call the race between Gina DeGenova and Lynn Maro in the past few weeks.
"What we saw from our results today, from our official count is that nothing changed," explained Tom McCabe, Director of the Mahoning County Board of Elections. "All the races stayed the same. In all of the races, there's no automatic recount needed. So, this board will proceed to do an audit of the ballots the first week of December."
Following a roller coaster of election night results, Republican Lynn Maro came out on top by 818 votes. The final numbers show Democratic Incumbent Gina DeGenova at 53,643 and Republican Lynn Maro sliding in with 54,461. That's 49.62% compared to 50.38%.
"It is really nice to have the results certified," Maro told 21 News on Tuesday. "The margin stayed the same at 818 votes. I'm looking forward to next year."
A total of 535 votes or less are needed for an automatic recount for a specific county-wide race.
"The automatic recount is one-half of 1% in Ohio," McCabe added. "None of the races fall within that margin so we will proceed with the audit at this point."
"As someone who's never been involved in politics before, I, from day one said, 'If this is the right path I'm supposed to be on, it'll work out the right way. If not, I'll pick up my briefcase and go back to court the next morning," Maro explained. "While it was emotional, it was a sense of, 'whatever is going to happen, is going to happen and it's going to be okay."
The closest race in the county went to Craig Beach's 2-mill fire and EMS renewal and increase levy, which failed by 7 votes.
The board also received 145 absentee ballots arriving after Election Day, but were postmarked by Monday, November 4th. This means those votes were counted.