Hicks Beats Otis Tooze On Recount

Hicks Beats Otis Tooze On Recount

Ypsilanti Township Sticker Supervisor Winner Increases Lead

Henry F. Hicks, who defeated incumbent Otis A. Tooze by an official margin of 43 votes as a sticker candidate for Ypsilanti township supervisor, picked up an additional 33 votes in the recount demanded by Tooze.

The recount, completed late yesterday afternoon, gave Hicks 732 and Tooze 656. The original, figures were 704 and 661.

Tooze's attorney, Albert Blashfield of Ann Arbor, said afterward, however, that they might appeal the recount tally to the courts.

“We will analyze the results an then will decide whether to go to court to protest the recount on the grounds that a dispute still exists over the disqualified votes," Blashfield said.

Says Hicks Still Wins

Hicks’ lawyer, Bernard Butler, also of Ann Arbor, replied, “if you add up the total of disqualified ballots and give them all to Tooze, Hicks still wins by 18 votes."

The recount made by the Ypsilanti Township Board, sitting as a board of canvassers, after Tooze filed a petition and posted the required $5 deposit for each of the four precincts.

Tooze, who was the 1948-49 chairman of the Board of Supervisors, had been Ypsilanti township supervisor since 1942. He won the Republican nomination in February, with Hicks second in a three-man race.

Hicks’ friends entered him as a sticker candidate a few days before the April 4 election.

Pays §4,500 Annually

The post pays $4,500 a year, the salary having been raised from $4,000 plus expenses at a township meeting April 4.

The third man in the April 4 balloting, Democrat Joseph J. Swope, saw his total cut from 405 to 394 in the recount.

In detail, the recount added 28 votes to Hicks’ total—eight in the first precinct, seven in the second, 11 in the third and two in the fourth. Tooze lost five votes—two each in the second and third precincts and one in the fourth.

Twenty-one votes were declared “void” by the canvassing board; 22 were blank.