Ballot count goes on

Edmondson, Romero swap spots in county race

By Brad Shannon | The Olympian • Published August 21, 2008

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Republican Robin Edmondson pulled 180 votes ahead of Democrat Sandra Romero in the five-way race for Thurston County commissioner after additional votes were counted Wednesday.

Thurston County

With Wednesday's additional count, Thurston County has tabulated 56,338 votes out of 139,941 mailed to voters. That brings turnout to 42 percent so far.

Statewide

With 926,154 ballots collected out of 3.4 million eligible voters statewide, turnout is about 27 percent. About 310,000 ballots are estimated to be on hand and uncounted. Secretary of State Sam Reed had predicted 46 percent turnout with the new top-two voting format.

What's next

Thurston County will count additional ballots at 6 p.m. today and 4 p.m. Friday, said Thurston County chief deputy auditor Ken Raske.

Romero remained 679 votes ahead of fellow Democrat Jon Halvorson, ensuring that she and Edmondson will be the finalists on the Nov. 4 ballot. Romero is a former state legislator and an environmental advocate; Edmondson is a retired business executive.

In one other hotly contested race, "Blue Collar" Brad Gehring of Bremerton pulled within 131 votes of Marco Brown of Belfair for the No. 2 spot on the ballot in one of the 35th District House races.

The two are battling for the right to take on five-term Democratic Rep. Kathy Haigh of Shelton in the Nov. 4 general election. Haigh was an easy primary winner with almost 58 percent of the vote.

The district sprawls over parts or all of four counties from west Thurston to some of Kitsap County. Gehring was 87 votes behind after votes were counted in Kitsap County, his home turf, but Brown re-expanded his advantage when Thurston County ballots were counted in the evening.

Neither candidate has claimed victory.

"There's a lot of votes to be counted in Kitsap County, and I've been doing a little bit better than Marco there. But it's still going to be way close," Gehring said. "It's probably going to be too close to call until it's done."

"It's going to be a roller-coaster thing until Friday. Mason is going to do a count at 4 o'clock" that day, Brown said.

Gehring serves on the Bremerton City Council. Brown is a semi-retired small-business owner. Haigh, a veterinarian from Shelton, predicted early on that Gehring would win. She has waited to launch a re-election campaign until seeing who her opponent will be.

In the widely watched governor's race, Democratic incumbent Chris Gregoire opened a 36,518-vote lead, or about 4 percentage points, over Republican Dino Rossi.