Mount Vernon City Council candidate Kent Renshaw has requested a recount of some precincts from the April election. According to the certified results, Kent came in 10 votes shy of the candidate in front of him.

In the interest of disclosure, I have spoken to Kent several times and did support him in his bid for election.

With that out of the way, I agree with the recount. There are several reasons that I would have requested one under these circumstances:

• Diebold machines have been shown to repeatedly be tampered with
• Machines only function as well as their makers (people)
• Votes may not have been tallied properly due to a power surge
• 10 voters may need to be disqualified

I could go on and on, but you get the idea. With such a close race, the votes need to be examined more carefully to ensure correct results.

Several hundred or several thousand votes wouldn’t likely require a recount, but I think 10 votes do require one.