Sallie Clark hasn’t given up her fight in the race to become Colorado Springs’ next mayor.

The candidate on Friday sent a letter to City Clerk Sarah Johnson saying that she may request a discretionary recount of Colorado Springs’ April 4 municipal election. Clark asked for more information on the estimated cost of a recount.

“It’s not over until it’s over,” Clark said in an interview.

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Per Colorado law, a mandatory recount is triggered if the margin between the two top finishers is 0.5% or less of the leading candidate’s vote total. A candidate may request a discretionary recount for election results that don’t fall into that threshold, which the candidate would pay for.

Unofficial results posted at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday show Yemi Mobolade, an entrepreneur and political newcomer, and Wayne Williams, a Colorado Springs city councilman, were so far likely to emerge victorious in Tuesday’s mayoral race. Mobolade had 29.8% of the vote while Williams garnered about 19.2% of votes, unofficial returns show.

If those results hold through the final tally, the candidates will go head-to-head in a runoff election scheduled for May 16 because neither earned more than 50% of the vote.

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Currently not making a spot in the runoff, if unofficial results hold, is Clark, who was a close third in the mayoral race. She garnered about 17.8% of the vote, trailing Williams by 1,546 votes.

Figures available from the clerk’s office show 109,938 total ballots were scanned so far in Colorado Springs’ April 4 election, for a voter turnout of about 35%.

City clerk’s officials said in an emailed statement Friday afternoon they had received Clark’s request and were gathering information for a response.

In her letter, Clark said she assumed the cost of a recount in the mayor’s election would be less than the final amount charged to candidates who requested discretionary recounts in the June 28, 2022 countywide primary election.

El Paso County Clerk and Recorder records show the initial estimated cost to conduct that recount was about $5,760 per candidate, Clark said in her letter.

Campaign finance records filed March 31 show Clark had $128,651.62 on hand, indicating she would more than likely be able to pay the cost of a recount.

In an interview Friday, Clark said she was considering making the request so she could be more confident in the local voting system.

“The results of this election are historically narrow and I want to make sure that we get it right so there’s no question about the integrity of our elections here in Colorado Springs, and to really instill confidence in the system.”

In recent years there has been a nationwide debate about the integrity of elections at all levels, after former President Donald Trump claimed the 2020 presidential election was “stolen” from him through widespread fraud. Local and state leaders in Colorado and elsewhere have refuted those allegations.

Currently Johnson’s office, in a “post-election period” through April 14, will allow military and overseas ballots to arrive through April 12. During this time voters who did not sign their ballot, or voters with signature discrepancies, can also cure those ballots.

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It was unclear Friday how many additional military and yet-to-be-cured ballots the clerk’s office could expect to receive.

Election workers will process those additional ballots at 5 p.m. April 12 and the election results will be certified by April 14, clerk’s officials said on the city website.

Williams, who served as Colorado’s secretary of state from 2015 to 2019, said he supported Clark’s legal right to the recount request but believed the election results would stand.

“As an election official I recognize there are no final results yet and there won’t be until April 13. I believe those results will show that Yemi and I will be the final two candidates in the runoff,” he said. “I have full confidence in the election judges and the election administration. … With the current margin, I don’t anticipate any significant changes in the results.”

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Peter Braza, professor and chair of the mathematics department at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, said it was “extremely unlikely” that additional ballots counted, or a recount, would change the results in Clark’s favor.

“If there were a huge number of ballots outstanding, then sure, anything could happen. In a nutshell, it’s not going to work for Sallie Clark,” Braza said. “Partly because even in the cured ballot case, there could be some (who vote) for Wayne, and (some who vote for) Sallie. And there probably are. That doesn’t mean that all the ballots would go to Sallie, or that even a majority would go to Sallie. They could go to other candidates, including Yemi.”

Clark said a request for a recount “makes sense.”

“It’s my right as a candidate – any mayoral candidate could request a similar recount. But mine is so close that I think it just makes sense to go ahead and do that,” Clark said. “We know there’s still military ballots outstanding. There’s a number of cures that are not cured yet. That’s why we’re doing the recount, to make sure that everything is counted at the end of the day.”

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