Lovick doubles lead in sheriff’s race
Published 10:32 pm Thursday, November 8, 2007
EVERETT — Snohomish County sheriff candidate John Lovick doubled his lead over Tom Greene in ballot results released Thursday.
The two were separated by 1,828 votes in the latest tally, compared to 890 on Wednesday.
Lovick has received 52,459 votes to Greene’s 50,631 votes.
About 56,000 ballots remain to be counted, and election workers planned to process ballots today and Saturday.
Lovick’s growing lead didn’t discourage Greene, who said the uncounted ballots could make up the difference.
“It’s clearly not going in the right direction but I’m not ready to throw in the towel yet,” Greene said Thursday.
Greene is a bureau chief for the Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office.
He remains hopeful that the ballots that were mailed in at the last minute or dropped off Tuesday will come in his favor. He said he expects to wait until most of the 56,000 ballots left to count are tallied.
Lovick, a state representative and retired Washington State Patrol sergeant, was pleased that his lead was increasing. He said he believes the trend showing him with the lead will hold with the remaining ballots.
It’s understandable why Greene wouldn’t want to concede right now, Lovick said, because Greene has worked hard for 2½ years on his run for sheriff.
“If he wants to wait a couple of days, it’s OK with me,” Lovick said.
Two city council races in Arlington and Edmonds remained close.
In the race for Arlington City Council Position 3, Scott Solla extended his lead to 19 votes over Barbara Tolbert. Solla previously had led by one vote.
Solla, a floral and produce merchandising specialist for Northwest Grocers, has 1,307 votes; Tolbert, executive director of the Arlington Fly-In, has 1,288 votes.
New vote tallies increased the spread between two candidates facing off for Edmonds City Council Position 7.
Incumbent Dave Orvis now leads by 87 votes over Strom Peterson, owner of The Resident Cheesemonger. Orvis has 4,313 votes to Peterson’s 4,226 votes. Orvis previously led by 30 votes.
Snohomish County turnout for the election has reached more than 169,000, or nearly 51 percent. More than 36,000 voters dropped off ballots at coffee shop and grocery store collection centers, and 568 voters cast ballots on electronic voting machines at area libraries.
About 1,000 ballots have signatures that don’t match county records, and those voters are expected to receive letters asking them to call the county auditor’s office.
County’s closest races
The Snohomish County elections department has counted 113,368 ballots. The department still needs to count another 56,000 that it has received and expects ballots mailed on Election Day to trickle in over the next few days.
Snohomish County sheriff
John Lovick52,45950.76 percent
Tom Greene50,63148.99 percent
Arlington City Council Position 3
Scott Solla1,30750.17 percent
Barbara Tolbert1,28849.44 percent
Edmonds City Council Position 7
Dave Orvis4,31350.46 percent
Strom Peterson4,22649.44 percent
Reporter Jeff Switzer: 425-339-3452 or jswitzer@heraldnet.com.
