Aiken County completes recount in U.S. House District 2 race

AIKEN, S.C. (WRDW/WAGT) - Aiken County finished recounting votes in the U.S. House District 2 race, one of several South Carolina counties required to recount ballots.

Joe Wilson and Aiken native Zyon Khalifa were separated by less than 1% of the total votes cast in last week’s election.

About 30 volunteers worked on the recount. The public was not allowed inside to watch up close, but people could watch from the doorway.

The results were reported Tuesday night. Fewer than 3,000 votes separate Wilson and Khalifa, with Wilson leading. Wilson received more than 147,000 votes and about 55% of the vote in Aiken County.

Aiken County Elections Director Dana Burden said election officials wanted to be transparent with residents during the recount.

“Anytime you have something like this happen, you want to make sure that you are ready. Public perception is everything. We want to be transparent to the residents of Akin County. We want them to see that we are doing a good job and this office is an office of integrity,” Burden said.

Machines in the Aiken County Elections Office scanned ballots Tuesday.

“My biggest thing was making sure that people could see truly how hard we work to secure your election and your ballot,” Burden said.

Westley Guyton, a recount observer, said observers were there to watch the process.

“We’re here just to make sure that from our observation that things are being done properly,” Guyton said.

Some observers were still questioning the process as ballots move through the machines. Guyton described what he saw.

“They’re just feeding it to the machine. So that’s how you voted. We’ve hit it through the machine. So what different results do we expect to get?” Guyton said.