It’s official: Thurston County certifies general election results
Thurston County certified Nov. 5 general election results Tuesday. Not much changed compared to early reporting, a close call in Lacey won’t trigger a recount, and voter turnout was up.
Almost all of the candidates who were ahead in the first round of results Nov. 5 maintained their leads:
Cheryl Selby will serve a second term as Olympia’s mayor after coming in about 1,000 votes ahead of Nathaniel Jones. Selby got 8,614 votes; Jones got 7,612.
Port of Olympia incumbent commissioner Joe Downing will serve a second term after defeating challenger Helen Wheatley: Downing got 37,150 votes to Wheatley’s 35,016.
Incumbent Jessica Bateman and newcomer Dani Madrone will serve on Olympia City Council. Bateman had 10,486 to Phyllis Booth’s 5,257 in the Position No. 2 race. For Position No. 3, Madrone came out with 11,001 votes while Matt Goldenberg got 4,503.
On Lacey City Council: For Position No. 1, Malcolm Miller claimed 6,431 votes while candidate Sarah Jean Morris had 4,392 votes. Both were running to fill Jason Hearn’s seat.
Incumbent Lenny Greenstein kept his spot in Position No. 2 with 5,677 votes to Harald Jones’s 4,930.
The closest race in Thurston County’s urban core was the Lacey City Council race between incumbent Lynda Zeman and Ed Kunkel for Position No. 3, but it wasn’t close enought to warrant a recount, said Thurston County Auditor Mary Hall Tuesday.
Kunkel and Zeman ended just 78 votes apart, but the race didn’t meet the 0.5-percent threshold for percentage difference needed to trigger a machine recount. Kunkel won with 5,499 to Zeman’s 5,421; their totals represented a 0.7-percent difference, Hall confirmed.
“Being that close, I can’t feel like I failed in any way,” Zeman told The Olympian Wednesday. “It was such a great experience to work with the community, to work with the council, to run my first campaign. An amazing experience.”
Zeman, who was appointed to the council earlier this year to replace former councilwoman Rachel Young, said people have been urging her to get engaged with the Lacey in a different way, maybe on a commission or advisory board.
“When almost half of the people who voted supported my vision and my desire to see Lacey forward, you don’t give up after something like that,” Zeman said.
Tumwater City Council will see one new member: Charles “Charlie” Schneider got more votes than incumbent Neil McClanahan in Position No. 7. Schneider ended with 3,525 votes, while McClanahan ended with 2,736.
Leatta Dahlhoff will keep her Position No. 1 spot on Tumwater City Council after getting 4,006 votes. Challenger Pamela Hanson had 2,147 votes.
And Joan Cathey, another incumbent on Tumwater City Council, won over Michael Pavlich for Position No. 3. Cathey got 3,704 votes and Pavlich got 2,579.
There will be no new faces on the North Thurston Public Schools board, with incumbents Gretchen Maliska, Graeme Sackrison, and Dave Newkirk keeping their spots. District No. 1 went to Maliska, who got 12,844 votes. Her challenger, Jason Noahr, got 10,822. Newkirk got 14,408 votes to challenger Alyssa Compton Clark’s 8,488 in District No. 5. Sackrison went uncontested.
In the only Olympia School Board race with two candidates on the ballot, Maria Flores won District No. 1 over Heath Howerton. Flores got 16,380 votes, and Howerton got 4,195.
In Tumwater, the only contested School Board race went to Scott Killough, who got 5,566 votes. Candidate Andrea McGhee ended with 4,967.
Final voter turnout was just over 44 percent. That’s up a full 10 percent from the last odd-year election in November 2017, according to election archives.
In the Nov. 3, 2015, general election, turnout in Thurston County was about 37 percent.
“I’m excited that turnout was up, and it’s never been easier for people to register to vote,” Auditor Mary Hall said in a phone interview with The Olympian Tuesday. This year people could register on election day.
Hall credits national attention to elections with the 2020 presidential race looming and some “fairly contested” local races, as well as a focus on voter outreach. She said her office has been encouraging young voters to get out and vote, and that it ran commercials in local movie theaters.
This story was originally published November 27, 2019 at 9:37 AM.
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