PORT TOWNSEND — Republican Jim Boyer and incumbent John Austin, a Democrat, will face each other on the November ballot for a Jefferson County commission seat, and a proposed fire levy increase in Port Townsend has failed with more than 54 percent opposed to it.
Those are the results after a count Thursday of 2,017 outstanding ballots in Tuesday’s primary election.
Thursday’s count changed no election outcomes from Tuesday’s tally of votes in the primary election.
The Jefferson County Auditor’s Office will count another 85 outstanding ballots today.
Voter turnout for the primary was 57.11 percent, with 12,434 of 21,772 mailed ballots returned.
Auditor Donna Eldridge said Jefferson County had the fourth best voter participation percentage in the state after Columbia, San Juan and Pacific counties.
Voter turnout in District 3, which decided the county commissioner primary race, was 60.56 percent, or 3,844 of 6,581 of ballots returned.
In Port Townsend, where voters squashed a proposal to raise the property tax rate to pay for fire services, the turnout was 56.94 percent, or 3,844 out of 6,751 ballots returned.
Voters throughout the county will decide the race for the commissioner seat in the Nov. 2 general election.
Port Ludlow home-builder Boyer, 64, received the highest number of votes in the primary race for the District 3 county commissioner seat. He had a total of 2,077 votes, or 47.31 percent.
“Three out of four voters in District 3 are not happy with our leadership,” Boyer said on Thursday.
“My focus will be to bring this message to the other two districts, that voters feel their needs have been ignored.”
Boyer said that his main priorities — a balanced budget, property rights, water for farmers, education and a strong economy — “are not partisan issues.”
Austin, 69, also of Port Ludlow, received 1,230 votes, or 28.02 percent. He is seeking a second term for the job, which pays $63,926 a year.
Austin said on Thursday that he wasn’t happy about the primary results but that he felt that “many of my supporters didn’t vote because they thought I was going to win.”
Austin said he would work hard to get out his message countywide during the next few months.
“I have been energized by these results and I will use that energy to renew my campaign,” Austin said.
Austin said one of his priorities is to educate voters about the importance of shoreline management.
Quilcene psychotherapist Diane Johnson, a Democrat, placed third in the commissioner race with 1,083 votes, or 24.67 percent, and has been eliminated.
“Things do look pretty final,” she said, “although I don’t want to concede until the election is certified.”
She intends to ask her supporters to vote for Boyer and has agreed to give him her sign locations, although the final decision will be up to the property owners.
“I can’t deliver anything,” she said. “But I will ask my supporters to support him.”
A proposed levy lid lift that would raise the city levy rate for fire services by 43 cents per $1,000 of assessed valuation lost with 1,951 votes, or 54.77 percent, opposed to 1,611 votes, or 43.25 percent, in favor.
Supporters of the measure initially thought it could pull ahead when the second wave of votes were counted, since it was behind by only 274 votes.
But after the second count, the margin widened to 340 votes.
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Jefferson County Reporter Charlie Bermant can be reached at 360-385-2335 or charlie.bermant@peninsuladailynews.com.
