Lynnwood Council challenger’s lead now at 13 votes

Lynnwood City Council challenger Van AuBuchon’s lead over incumbent Jim Smith dropped to 13 votes Tuesday from his 14-vote lead Friday.

Smith had led in early returns. AuBuchon moved into a tie Nov. 16 and edged ahead a day later.

Elections officials counted 13 new votes Tuesday – six for AuBuchon, seven for Smith.

AuBuchon had 3,619 votes Tuesday to 3,606 for Smith. AuBuchon had 3,613 votes Friday to 3,599 for Smith. There continued to be 39 write-in votes. At least 290 Lynnwood voters left the position blank.

The two are likely to be headed for a recount, probably a hand recount.

State law requires a machine recount if the margin between two candidates is less than 0.5 percent of their combined total when the county certifies results Nov. 29. It’s a hand recount if the margin is less than 0.25 percent.

With the current two-candidate total of 7,225 votes, a margin of 36 votes or fewer would trigger a machine recount, and a margin of 18 votes or fewer would trigger a hand recount.

A machine recount means that elections officials run all Lynnwood ballots through the counting machine after separating them from other county ballots. A hand recount means that teams of two members appointed by county Democrats and Republicans count piles of ballots with supervision from county officials until they agree on totals.

A tie vote after a recount would mean deciding the election by a coin flip.

County officials have less than a fraction of a percent of votes left to count – 40 uncounted ballots on hand from around the county and any additional ballots that still may arrive, either from voters whose ballots were returned for signature verification or from voters living traveling or serving in the military overseas. They have counted more than 52 percent of county ballots. They had expected a turnout of 52 percent to 53 percent.

The county will release its next count Nov. 28.

Evan Smith can be reached at schsmith@frontier.com