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Heitmann, Barton confirmed winners in Collier vote recount

A close election last week forced the Collier County Board of Elections to conduct machine and hand recounts for the Naples Mayor and City Council races.
Collier County Board of Elections
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WGCU
A close election forced the Collier County Board of Elections to conduct machine and hand recounts for the Naples Mayor and City Council races.

The machine and hand recounts of the City of Naples Mayoral and City Council races concluded Saturday with Naples Mayor Teresa Heitmann retaining her post and the third council seat winner confirmed as Berne Barton.

Heitmann kept her seat by a slim 22-vote margin over Gary Price, 3,269 to 3,247. Third-place candidate Ted Blankenship had 2,049 votes.

After the machine count, the City Council race remained within a margin under one quarter of one percent, mandating a manual recount.

Board of elections officials conducted the hand count and the result confirmed that Berne Barton defeated Tony Perez-Benitoa by 0.16 percent of the vote — 3,686 votes to 3,652.

Winning council seats outright were Bill "Coach" Kramer with 4,285 votes and Linda Penniman, who collected 4,171 votes.

The county's Second Unofficial Election Results can be found at www.CollierVotes.gov.

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