A formal canvass of the March 10 Holbrook Primary Election was to be presented to the city council at 7 o’clock Tuesday evening. A decision by the council on whether to accept misspelled or variations of write-in candidates’ names could affect the outcome.

Preliminary vote counts show C.J. Wischmann exceeding the required 50 percent plus one vote to be elected directly, and Francie Payne in close striking distance of that total. The updated tallies provided to the council have Wischmann with 319 and Payne with a total of 249 votes. It will be up to the council to decide whether to count the 26 additional votes cast for Payne in which her name was misspelled.

A total of 534 votes were cast, requiring a candidate to receive 268 votes in order to be elected outright.

City Clerk Cher Reyes noted that Arizona law states that, “Each variation of the candidate’s name should be tabulated separately. The city or town council in canvassing the vote is required by law to take into consideration the apparent intent of the voters as to write-in votes. Consequently, the election board should not act as judge of the write-in votes but rather leave this task to the council.”

If the city council approves the canvass as submitted and makes accepts the misspellings of Payne’s name as valid votes, Wischmann and Payne will be elected directly and there will be a runoff between the next two top vote-getters for the third council seat.

Among the remaining three candidates, David Newlin received the most votes in the primary election, coming in at 195 according to the unofficial results. He was followed by write-in candidates Tim Dixon, who received 143 votes, as well as five votes with misspellings of his name, and Earl Kester, who received 112 votes and 24 votes with variations of his name. Even if the council elected to accept all of the votes containing misspellings or variations of Kester’s name and none of the ones with misspellings or variations of Dixon’s name, Dixon would retain the lead, resulting in a runoff between Newlin and Dixon in the May general election.

If the council does not accept the misspelled ballots, Payne, Newlin, Dixon and Kester will all face off for the remaining two seats.

Councilman Bobby Tyler won the uncontested race for mayor with a total of 433 votes and was elected outright.

The issue of Home Rule also passed by a large margin with 357 yes votes and 121 no votes.

The general election will be held on Tuesday, May 12.