photo collage by Dan Mabbutt
The official election vote canvass—the final examination of votes before certifying the results—was held for a contentious Virgin Town Council election on Tuesday, Nov. 10, in the Virgin Town Hall. Just one vote separated Daniel Snyder at 126 votes from Danyale Blackmore at 127 votes. Five votes remained to be counted.
One main reason for the contention revolving around the election was the fact that the small town of Virgin has been rocked recently by a controversial proposal by Zion Sunset Resort to develop 56 acres of land near the center of town for an RV resort. A special referendum had to be held and lawsuits against the town and three Virgin residents had been filed and contested in court before the issue was settled.
This issue bled into the race for the open Town Council seats between Snyder and Blackmore because Snyder—a member of the Planning and Zoning Commission—voted against the zone change requested by Zion Sunset Resort, and Blackmore—a member of the Virgin Town Council at the time—voted for it. In an interview for the Independent on election day, Blackmore continued to strongly support the development.
At 5:45 on Tuesday, Virgin Mayor Bruce Densley called the meeting to order before a full house of visitors and Virgin residents. Densley said that “four to five times” as many people voted in the recent election than was typical for a town the size of Virgin, which had a population of 596 as of the 2010 census. With the Town’s attorney, Heath Snow, available via a video conference link from St. George, Town Clerk Monica Bowcutt carefully opened the ballots, deposited them in the metal ballot box, shuffled them randomly and Densley drew them out again one by one. Bowcutt announced the result of each ballot with Densley confirming. In the end, Snyder gained three votes and Blackmore gained one, moved Snyder past Blackmore, 129 to 128 to reverse the result of the election.
After officially announcing the result, Bowcutt turned the meeting back to Densley. Councilor Jean Krause moved that the result be accepted by the members of the Council acting as the election board, and Densley seconded her motion. Bill Adams and Danyale Blackmore—still a member of the current Council—voted to reject the result. Densley and Krause voted “yes,” and Jay Lee, after being asked several times by Densley to vote, finally said that he abstained. This left the vote 2 to 2. The Virgin Town Council had refused to accept the result reported by Town Clerk Bowcutt.
Bowcutt described the way votes had been counted in detail. Two judges and two poll watchers, in addition to Bowcutt, had carefully observed the vote count. Both poll watchers had kept separate tallies of the count in addition to the official count kept by Bowcutt.
After consulting with the town attorney about what could be done next, the Council finally decided to hold a recount anyway. The judges and poll watchers will observe a new count now scheduled for Monday, Nov. 16, at 6 p.m., and a new meeting of the Council acting as the election board will be held immediately after they canvass the vote a second time. The public is invited to attend.
Before the meeting adjourned, Bowcutt told the town attorney that she never wanted to do this again and asked what had to be done to hold a vote by mail instead. Blackmore addressed the audience and said that she wanted to thank everyone who had worked on her campaign, but she did not concede the election.
Daniel Snyder was also in the audience.
“I suppose the Council is within their rights to do what they did,” he said.
The Independent will continue to follow this story.
