CONCHO, Okla. – A recount in a Cheyenne and Arapaho faction’s election for governor and lieutenant governor has yielded the race’s third different result.

At the request of both executive branch campaigns, the Cheyenne and Arapaho Election Commission affiliated with Janice Prairie Chief-Boswell’s administration conducted a recount late Tuesday night of the tribes’ Nov. 5 general election and declared Rollin “Eddie” Hamilton and Cornell Sankey the winners.

Initial unofficial results had Roberta Hamilton and Jerry Levi winning the office by 10 votes, but the certification announcement issued on Nov. 6 had the race ending in a tie after 84 provisional ballots and one absentee ballot were disallowed.

On Wednesday morning, Roberta Hamilton confirmed that her campaign would be submitting a challenge to the tribes’ Supreme Court. She declined to elaborate on the specifics until after filing.

Originally announced Friday for 2 p.m., Tuesday’s election commission meeting to address the recount request, along with several election challenges, started four hours late due to lack of quorum.

Among the questions raised in the special session were concerns about the use of provisional ballots, which are not mentioned the tribes’ election code. In the certification announcement released on Nov. 6, the commission said it disallowed an unsigned absentee ballot and 84 that were cast by tribal citizens whose names could not be found on the voter registration list, prompting the tie.

With incomplete files prompting the commission to seek out more than 3,000 citizens to re-register to vote during July and August, the ballots were introduced in an effort to not disenfranchise previously registered voters who might have missed the announcement. The commissioners explained Tuesday night that those voters were only allowed to cast a ballot for the executive branch races, hence the unchanged numbers in the three legislative races.

“As an election commissioner, I questioned one provisional ballot,” Arapaho District No. 3 commissioner Anthony Spottedwolf said. “All it takes is one for all of the provisional ballots to be disallowed.”

Although provisional ballots were distributed for use in last month’s primary election, Spottedwolf said during the meeting that not all of them were counted due to the margin between the second and third place finishers. However, both Spottedwolf and the election commission’s attorney, Michelle Cecilia, confirmed during the meeting that all of the provisional ballots cast in the general election would be reviewed during the Tuesday night recount and those verified as being cast by eligible voters would be included. However, with two legal challenges from the Oct. 8 primary election set to go before the administration’s Supreme Court Friday, the commissioners acknowledged the possibility that they may have to start all over again.

Citing the voter registration issues that prompted the use of provisional ballots, tribal citizen Joyce Wood of El Reno is asking for the overturn of all results from the primary election. According to an employee phone directory published on the tribes’ website, Wood is also Prairie Chief-Boswell’s executive assistant. Prairie Chief-Boswell and her running mate, Connie Yellowman, finished third in last month’s primary.

The other challenge comes from former governor Darrell Flyingman and his running mate, Adrianna Harris, who were the only executive branch candidates to file with both factions’ claimant election commissions. However, their names were removed from the Prairie Chief-Boswell affiliated election commission’s ballot prior to the October primary, prompting the challenge.

Despite honoring the recount requests, the commission did not take any action Tuesday night on the election challenges filed by both executive branch campaigns over questions of ballot security, including allegations from the Hamilton/Levi campaign that on Nov. 6, at least one ballot box was left unattended in the main lobby of the tribal complex outside the conference room where votes were counted the night before.

After the initial count on Nov. 5, the ballots were stored in plastic tubs closed with zip ties. Members of the election commission denied leaving the storage containers out in the open and maintained that the boxes were locked up in the commission’s office after the ballot counting ended.

“What’s the point of having an office if you can’t put stuff in there?” interim chairman William Sankey asked.

The one challenge that the commission made an attempt to move on was one filed by former lieutenant governor candidate Yellowman to have Roberta Hamilton disqualified. Citing a portion of the tribe’s election code prohibiting the willful inclusion of false information in campaign material, Yellowman had filed a request for a disqualification hearing due to material posted on a Facebook page affiliated with the Hamilton/Levi campaign that specifically mentioned Yellowman, Prairie Chief-Boswell and Executive Director Ida Hoffman. A motion to schedule a hearing on the matter failed.

“Have any of you ever been on Facebook?” legislative candidate Dale Hamilton asked of the commissioners. “Facebook can be like throwing gasoline on a fire. Half of the people on there aren’t who they say they are.”