Loser in Oldsmar race wants recount

Council candidate Loretta Wyandt's request follows a 221-vote loss to David Tilki.

By ED QUIOCO

© St. Petersburg Times, published March 21, 2000

OLDSMAR -- Loretta Wyandt, who lost her bid for a City Council seat in the March 14 city election, has protested the outcome and demanded a recount of the votes.

Wyandt, 69, sent a three-sentence letter dated two days after the election to the Pinellas County Supervisor of Elections questioning the results of her race against David Tilki, 46, for council Seat 3. Tilki, who won in all three of the city's precincts, got 58 percent of the vote and defeated Wyandt by 221 votes.

Wyandt, who has lived in Oldsmar for 32 years, was reached by phone on Monday but declined to comment before hanging up on a Times reporter.

"I really don't want to talk to the St. Petersburg Times," Wyandt said. "Nothing personal."

Supervisor of Elections Dorothy Ruggles said the county's three-member election canvassing board will discuss Wyandt's protest at a meeting Friday. The members of the board are Ruggles, Pinellas County Judge Patrick Caddell and County Commissioner Sallie Parks.

"We would like her to be more specific," Ruggles said. "Her letter doesn't really give us a real good basis to do a recount."

Florida statutes provide a number of justifications for a recount, including if the election was especially close or if the candidate can prove that the election "was messed up somehow," Ruggles said. Requests for recounts are quite common, but none has ever caused a change in the election results, Ruggles said.

"We have done recounts . . . dozens of times," she said. "But nothing has ever changed. The winner remains the winner and the loser has always lost."

Tilki, who will participate in his first City Council meeting tonight, said he heard rumors about Wyandt's protest but didn't know what to make of it.

"It seems quite far-fetched," Tilki said. "I have every confidence in the world with the Supervisor of Elections Office and their equipment."

Ruggles said some candidates find it hard to believe that they could lose an election.

"Sometimes you just want to believe that everyone who says they voted for you actually voted for you," Ruggles said. "It is just hard to relate that maybe you didn't win. It bothers your ego and it bothers your personality."

Oldsmar Mayor Jeff Sandler said some candidates wonder how they could have lost when "after an election, everyone says they voted for you."

"No one wants to say, "Hey, I didn't vote for you because I thought the other guy . . . was better,' " Sandler said. "No doubt losing can be painful. However, I really don't know if it is in the best interest of the city for the results to be questioned, as they seem relatively decisive."

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