Your independent hometown award-winning newspaper
Carlson almost certain winner
Rick Dole's lead increased to 56 votes over Councilmember Bill Stokes in their La Conner Town Council election race after the Skagit County elections office posted totals Friday. Ivan Carlson has a 102 vote lead over Councilmember John Leaver, while Councilmember Marylee Chamberlains 212 vote margin over Glen Johnson ensures her reelection.
John Doyle has 1,007 votes, 82% of the total in the Fire District 13 Position 2 commissioner race, the only other local election with a challenger, Eric Day.
The La Conner School Board directors, Amanda Bourgeois, District 2, J.J. Wilbur, District 3, and Susan Deyo, District 5, all have at least 1,082 votes.
Dole is up 232 votes to Stokes 176 votes. Dole led by 22 votes election night. The Dole-Stokes contest saw 138 votes counted Friday after only four votes were counted Thursday. Vote total increases were similar in the other council races.
Carlson is on his way to victory.
The next ballot count update will be reported by 5 p.m. Monday. It is not known how many La Conner ballots remain uncounted. The 420 votes cast to date in the Carlson-Leaver race is four more cast than in any municipal election here since Ramon Hayes won the mayor's contest with 416 votes in 2011. Last year 730 votes were cast for president in the La Conner precinct.
This is the first contested council election since 2015 and the first time Leaver or Stokes were challenged, while Chamberlain had a 2015 opponent.
In the Anacortes mayor’s race, Councilmember Mike Miller lead has increased to 169 votes, with 3,884 votes, against fellow Councilmember Ryan Walters’ 3,715 votes. Tuesday night Miller was up by eight votes.
The elections office estimates 4,800 ballots remain to be counted. They counted 4,909 Thursday and 30,318 since Tuesday.
The county’s 4,800 uncounted ballots is the fifth largest total among the state’s 39 counties.
The last vote count will be Nov. 16.
Reader Comments(0)