Nine Mile Candidate Will Appeal School Board Election Results

Michael Funston beat Paul Grubbs in the Nov. 7 election for a Nine Mile Falls school board seat, but the race may not be decided yet.

Grubbs, a write-in candidate, said he will file a letter of complaint with Superior Court in both Spokane and Stevens counties by Friday in protest of what he calls “irregularities in the polls.” Grubbs said he is seeking another election.

Funston, a conservative who home-schools his children and is opposed to state-mandated education reform, defeated Grubbs, the incumbent board president and a supporter of reform, by a margin of 116 votes.

Elections officers on both sides of the county line - which runs through the middle of the school district - said they were aware of potential problems with the voting.

A valid write-in vote would have the name of a registered write-in candidate written in the proper space on the ballot.

Stevens County auditor Tim Gray said voters at several precincts crossed out Funston’s name on the ballot book, which is affixed to the voting booth, and wrote Grubbs’ name.

Grubbs believes voters, seeing his name hand-written on the ballot book, punched the hole next to his name. If they had, the vote would have counted for Funston.

Gray said election officers at the precincts checked the voting booths every half hour. Every time an officer found Grubbs’ name written on the book, they used white-out “to correct the problem.” That is standard procedure, Gray said.

Gray said he does not believe there were enough errors to swing the election because the books were checked so frequently.

Noel Elliott, assistant superintendent of elections for Spokane County, said his office had received phone calls from voters complaining of the same problem. But workers at precincts did not report anything out of the ordinary, Elliott said.

In addition, 27 ballots were thrown out as “over-votes” because they contained votes for both Grubbs and Funston.

Grubbs said he would not make a fuss if Funston had gotten an overwhelming majority. But the closeness of the race makes him wonder if voter error played a key role.

“If it were a blowout, I’d say ‘Gee’. But if you lay these all out, hey, you can’t be, what is the word, reasonably certain,” said Grubbs.

Funston and Grubbs ran on vastly different platforms. Funston - and two unsuccessful candidates - protested the school district’s shift toward a new teaching philosophy called “outcome based education.” All districts in the state are beginning the transition, as required by state law.

The trio of candidates said that philosophy - which requires students to demonstrate their knowledge in a series of evaluations - was a way to socially engineer students and would result in dumber, easily manipulated citizens.

Funston said he would not worry about Grubbs’ complaints. He said he would slowly learn the job and would begin investigating the district’s curriculum.

He said he would count on Lynn Stuter, an unsuccessful write-in candidate who shares his views, and others.

“We’re looking for any information on programs assessing behaviors, anything related to outcome-based education,” said Funston.

“The kids should be taught strict academics. The kids and the parents should be able to make the moral judgement or value judgements.”

Funston said he expected to feel “tension” from the other four board members, who largely support the changes.

“I don’t expect big changes, but at least we are trying,” said Funston.

, DataTimes MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: Nine Mile results Here are final results of the Nine Mile Falls school board election. (* denotes write-in candidate): Position 1 Georgann Porterfied 1,125 Position 2 Michael Funston 648 Paul Grubbs* 532 Position 3 Al Flaim 876 George Hanrahan 349 Position 4 Janet Johnston 1,158 Lynn Stuter* 91