CALDWELL -- The process to re-tabulate ballots cast in the College of Western Idaho's levy election has kicked off Wednesday in Canyon County.
The $39 million levy, which would have funded the construction of a new health science building, fell short by just 144 votes, a razor-thin margin. The college asked for officials to perform the recount in the weeks after the November election.
But Canyon County Clerk Chris Yamamoto said its unlikely the recount will tip the scales in favor of the measure's passage.
"I would expect that we will see very little, if any, change in the vote," he said.
If all goes well, the recount will take about 15 hours to finish, according to Yamamoto. Workers count the first roughly-3,500 ballots by hand, then run those same ballots through the voting machines. If the machines return the same numbers as the hand-count, the county can finish adding up the remaining ballots using the machine.
If those totals do not match, however, counters will have to tabulate all 64,247 ballots by hand - a process that would take significantly longer and necessitate a much larger crowd of counters, Yamamoto said.
The measure appeared on ballots in Ada County as well. Officials in Ada County will conduct their own recount in the coming weeks; those results will then be combined with Canyon's totals in order to determine the final result.
Recounts are fairly uncommon - Yamamoto said this is the first instance in Canyon County in his eight years as clerk.
It's unclear whether CWI will put the levy measure back before voters in May if the recount does not change the final result.