MacFadzen drops recount request, concedes sheriff primary to Wright

CONCORD — Belknap County sheriff candidate Mike MacFadzen called off his request for a recount Tuesday afternoon in his primary race against incumbent Sheriff Bill Wright. Both MacFadzen and Wright attended the recount at the state archives.

MacFadzen filed the recount request after losing to Wright by a narrow margin of 152 votes last week, but decided to backpedal mid-way through the recount when it was clear the outcome of the election was not going to change.

“I was eager to hear the entire recount from start to finish, but I didn't call for it,” Wright said. “He had the ability to continue or cancel it. I know there were areas of concern he had, and those were addressed to his satisfaction.”

“Several of the towns were coming in with accurate counts,” MacFadzen said. “The town we had a concern with was Barnstead. I requested they count that town. They did, the count came in and it was accurate.”

MacFadzen explained that his team anticipated more favorable numbers from Barnstead, and grew suspicious when the count didn’t match their expectations. 

“We expected Barnstead to go in our favor but it went the other way drastically,” MacFadzen said. “The result wasn’t going to change so there wasn’t any point in going further and wasting anyone else’s time.”

Wright stated that the sheriff’s department was going to continue to progress as an agency and move forward.

“We’re going to find out tomorrow afternoon if someone is going to be running on the Democrat ticket and continue from there,” Wright said.

MacFadzen offered his congratulations to Wright, and hoped that his campaign was at least able to bring some important issues to light.

“Hopefully it opens an eye to the fact that there are some things that need to be addressed and changed,” MacFadzen said.