News - Elections

POSTED: Thursday, Nov. 05, 2009

No major changes in Whatcom County Council races

The race for the Whatcom County Council District 1 seat got a little tighter after more than 5,800 votes were counted Thursday, Nov. 5.

Former County Councilman Dan McShane still led small-business owner Kathy Kershner, 50.6 percent to 49.4 percent, according to the Whatcom County Auditor's Office. They were separated by 510 votes.

McShane's lead slipped a bit after Thursday's count, losing more than 120 votes from the cushion he had the day before.

Meanwhile, the leaders in the other three County Council races stayed the same, though the figures changed a bit.

Ken Mann slightly increased his lead over Mary Beth Teigrob, though by less than 100 votes, for the District 2 seat being vacated by Councilwoman Laurie Caskey-Schreiber. He was winning 53.3 percent to 46.7 percent.

District 3 County Councilman Carl Weimer continued to best Michelle Luke, 51.7 percent to 48.3 percent.

Small-business owner Bill Knutzen increased his lead by more than 400 votes over Caskey-Schreiber for the At-Large seat. He led 52.4 percent to 47.6 percent; Caskey-Schreiber already conceded the race.

Meanwhile, the Auditor's Office has received 61,294 ballots, for a total turnout so far of 53.6 percent.

Auditor Shirley Forslof initially predicted a 55 percent turnout, though she has since revised the prediction to between 51 percent and 55 percent due to returns having been a bit slower than anticipated before Election Day.

The office has again taken what seems like annual criticism over its ability to count ballots after releasing a count of just 2,900 ballots Wednesday.

Election Supervisor Pete Griffin had predicted the office would be able to tally between 4,000 and 6,000 newly received ballots that day, but having to count thousands of write-in ballots this election slowed the office down, Griffin said. He had to pull several staffers tasked with other duties off their work for that count.

Though not all write-in ballots have been tallied, the outcomes of those races are clear, Forslof said, so they will put off counting the rest until other ballots are tallied.

On Thursday, the count went back to the office's typical average, and Griffin was hopeful they can finish counting all ballots received so far by Friday.

To top it all off, the office suffered what any business might during normal operations - one elections staffer ended up sick and another broke an ankle, Griffin said.