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Second winner not yet called in MSU Board of Trustees race

MSU Board of Trustees candidates Democrat Rebecca Bahar-Cook (left) and Republican Julie Maday (right)
WKAR Voter Guide
MSU Board of Trustees candidates: Democrat Rebecca Bahar-Cook (left) and Republican Julie Maday (right)

With 99 percent of the vote counted, the race remains too close to call for the second of two open seats on the Michigan State University Board of Trustees, according to the Associated Press.

Republican Julie Maday appeared to take an early lead in the race, however on Nov. 7, an error was discovered in the vote totals. Bahar-Cook announced it on her Facebook page, " Allegan County recorded 20,363 votes for me on their website but the Secretary of State's unofficial number has me only at 2,363."

Since that time, Bahar-Cook and Maday have been essentially deadlocked in a race, that as of 1:00 p.m. Sunday, the Associated Press said is too close to call.

Bahar-Cook has 2,414,019 votes, giving her 24.3 percent of the total, while Maday has 2,407,772 and 24.2 percent, according to the AP.

While Bahar-Cook and Maday are waiting for a final call in this race, Republican Mike Balow will claim one of the two empty seats on the Board of Trustees. He garnered 2,476,891 votes, 24.9 percent of the total.

Balow told WKAR this was his third time running for the seat .

"Job one is getting to know all of my colleagues and then figuring out how can we work together to really try to eliminate some of these black clouds to set us up for success in 2025," he said.                                

Balow had been active in advocating for MSU to bring back its swim and dive team which was disbanded in 2020. He said he will be examining the athletics budget to ensure MSU is doing all it can for all sports.

Note from News Director: WKAR uses the Associated Press for election results. We erroneously published a story Saturday naming Maday as the winner of the second board seat. That story was posted without going through our normal editing process and has been removed from the website. We apologize for the error and will continue to monitor this race for updates from the AP.

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