Democratic incumbent David Hartley came back from a 205-vote deficit to beat Republican challenger Kyle Koehler for Clark County commission after provisional ballots were counted Tuesday afternoon.

Koehler had narrowly led the race after the Nov. 6 election. Once the provisional ballots were added Tuesday, Hartley had 30,498 votes to 30,240 for Koehler, but that margin triggers an automatic recount next week.

The results of the hotly contested race will determine which party controls county commission. If Hartley wins, the board will remain divided politically but if Koehler wins, Republicans will hold all three seats for the first time in about two decades.

The final count came after the four Clark County Board of Elections board members spent more than two hours hand-checking the provisional ballots before they were scanned by the tabulator.

The final tally of provisional ballots was 1,926.

Of the 2,365 provisional ballots cast, 439 were rejected Monday for a number of reasons, including those cast at the wrong precinct and wrong polling location, and voter registration and other identification issues.

Board of elections officials will hand-count a random sampling of Clark County votes from six precincts beginning at 8 a.m. Monday at its offices in the Springview Government Center, then scan them, Board of Elections Director Matthew Tlachac said.

It chose the six precincts randomly by drawing the precinct names out of a basket. Those picked were City 14, Green 1, Springfield Twp. 3, City 18, Bethel 4 and City 6.

The amount of votes in the random hand-count have to be at least 5 percent of votes cast.

“In this case, it’s a little more than 5 percent,” Tlachac said.

If the numbers come out the same by the hand count and by scanning, the entire county’s ballots will be recounted mechanically, he said. If they don’t come out the same, the entire county will have to be counted by hand.

The process could last several days, he said.

Hartley wasn’t present for the counting and didn’t return a call seeking comment Tuesday evening.

Koehler, who attended the counting of the provisional ballots along with several family members, said he was disappointed by the results but was looking forward to the recount next week.

Koehler and his attorneys recently filed documents with the board of elections regarding objections to alleged errors made by staff members processing provisional ballots, including poll workers sealing previously unsealed envelopes and a discrepancy in the number of signatures and vote tally.

In Tuesday’s edition, the Springfield News-Sun erroneously said poll workers unsealed the envelopes.

After receiving legal counsel, the board accepted those provisional ballots on Monday.

However, attorney Dan Harkins wasn’t sure yet if his firm would contest the alleged errors in court.

“Because of the close margin, it would be premature to say what we’ll do until the recount is complete,” said Harkins. “We primarily wanted to make sure people who voted were registered,” he said of their document filing with the board.

“We hope that everyone understands the hard work put into elections and why the candidates had to wait so long,” Tlachac said. “We feel we’ve done our due diligence and were accurate in our counts.”