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Former Mayor Dixon Still Not Pleased With Primary

BALTIMORE (WJZ) -- Baltimore's primary is officially certified. The state Board of Elections accepted the city's election results last night. The state board may be satisfied but mayoral candidate Sheila Dixon is not.

Political reporter Pat Warren spoke to the former mayor Thursday afternoon.

Former Mayor Dixon spoke with WJZ after a long conference call with state elections officials.

For Dixon, the election is not over.

"For me, right now, it's really trying to get some answers to questions that still have not been answered," she said.

Dixon cites precincts where the elections board failed to find out why the number of voters and the number of ballots don't add up. The elections administrator admits they're a mystery.

"There will be precincts that cannot be explained. We don't know what happened. The numbers simply don't match," said State Elections Administrator Linda Lamone.

Dixon believes it's important that they know why.

"If you watch The Good Wife and Scandal, you wouldn't think it would happen in Baltimore but it really concerns me because this was a huge turnout and there were a lot of people who had not voted in the past because of being discouraged, not seeing results---particularly young people," Dixon said.

A spokeswoman for primary winner Catherine Pugh says her campaign is satisfied with the state review.

Dixon tells WJZ the problem is bigger than the mayor's race.

"This is not sour grapes on my part, because we ran a great campaign, but it's about every vote counting and people feeling that their vote counted," Dixon said.

Dixon is keeping options open and hasn't decided yet whether to challenge the results.

"We have until Tuesday 'cause Monday's a holiday to determine if we feel that it warrants a recount or not," Dixon said.

Challenges from other candidates can't be ruled out, either.

"It's not about what happened to me because there are council seats that are questioned. It's just the overall process," Dixon said.

A process that isn't over. There's still a possibility of a legal challenge from election watchdog groups.

Election results show Sheila Dixon about 2,400 votes behind Catherine Pugh in the Democratic mayoral primary.

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