Last-minute voters are expected to push turnout in Tuesday’s general election easily above the 50 percent mark by week’s end, when a second tally is scheduled.
The Clallam County Auditor’s Office said that it had received 4,053 returned ballots Tuesday and another 4,000 were expected to be returned Wednesday.
The second count of votes will be at about 4:30 p.m. Friday.
As of Wednesday, the confirmed total was 20,663 returned ballots, or 45.17 percent of all of the 45,739 ballots mailed in Clallam County.
If 4,000 more ballots came in Wednesday as expected, voter turnout would reach about 54 percent, with 24,663 ballots returned.
Clallam County Auditor Patty Rosand said that she thinks many voters decided to wait until the Tuesday deadline, or shortly before, to return their ballots to ensure that they are confident with their choices.
“I think that people have learned from past experience that there can be last-minute, breaking news that changes their vote,” she said.
Rosand said she expects only about 200 ballots to arrive in the mail today.
Ballots will continue to trickle in for the rest of the week, she said.
Rosand said the Auditor’s Office is required to count votes every three days until the election is certified Nov. 24 as long as it has at least 500 ballots to tally.
The last ballots to be counted are typically the ones that were submitted without a signature but later were signed by the voter, or those that came from people living overseas or out of state, she said.
As of the Tuesday count, three races are so close that they would qualify for a machine recount if the results were final.
A recount won’t be declared until each ballot has been tallied and the election is certified.
The races with the razor-thin margins are for Port of Port Angeles commission District 3, Port Angeles City Council Position 2 and Port Angeles City Council Position 4.
Any local races where the winning candidate has fewer than 2,000 more votes than an opponent and less than one-half percent of the total votes cast in the race must have a machine recount, according to state law.
In the port race, incumbent John Calhoun is leading his opponent, Brad Collins, by 48 votes.
His margin sits at 0.38 percent.
Calhoun received 6,211 votes, or 50.1 percent, while Collins had 6,163 votes, or 49.8 percent.
Former City Council member Edna Petersen is leading Max Mania for Position 2 on the Port Angeles council with 11 votes and a margin of 0.3 percent.
Petersen received 1,789 votes, or 50.15 percent, while Mania, garnered 1,778 votes, or 49.85 percent.
In the race for Position 4 on the Port Angeles council, Brooke Nelson is beating incumbent Deputy Mayor Betsy Wharton with 13 votes. Her margin is 0.38 percent.
Nelson received 1,761 votes, or 50.19 percent, while Wharton got 1,748 votes, or 49.81 percent.
The other two Port Angeles City Council races have percentage differences in the single digits, and the leading candidates, Larry Little and Patrick Downie, have not claimed victory.
Downie who had 1,697 votes, or about 53 percent, while his opponent, Harry Bell, had 1,502 votes, or about 47 percent.
Little received 1,755 votes, or 51.7 percent, while his opponent, Cody Blevins, had 1,635 votes, or 48.2 percent.
In the two contested Sequim City Council races, Ted Miller is beating incumbent Walt Schubert and Don Hall is beating his opponent, Michael East.
With 1,009 votes, Miller has about 66 percent of the vote.
Schubert, who was first elected 10 years ago and served six years as mayor, has received 518 votes, or about 34 percent.
Hall has 750 votes, or about 55 percent of the vote.
East is trailing with 607 votes, or about 45 percent.
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Reporter Tom Callis can be reached at 360-417-3532 or at tom.callis@peninsuladailynews.com.
