Port of Olympia District 2 candidate extends lead with new count. What happens now?

The Port of Olympia District 2 race between incumbent Bob Iyall and challenger Jerry Toompas, which has gone back and forth since the general election on Nov. 4, held firm after another ballot count on Thursday.

Special education teacher Toompas grabbed a 130-vote lead on Wednesday and it grew to 153 votes on Thursday, Thurston County elections data show.

Toompas is leading with 39,124 votes to Iyall’s 38,971 votes.

The wider gap between the two candidates means it has moved outside the range of a hand recount, but is still within the range of a machine recount.

A machine recount is triggered when the candidates are separated by less than 2,000 votes and less than one-half of 1% or .005%, according to the Thurston County Auditor’s Office.

Toompas and Iyall are separated by 153 votes and .0019%, said county elections manager Tillie Naputi-Pullar on Thursday.

Going into Thursday’s vote count, the county’s elections website showed they still needed to count 390 ballots. Now, it shows no ballots to count and yet another count is set for 4 p.m. Monday. Why?

Because ballots will continue to trickle in, including those from overseas and the military, and they will be counted so long as they were postmarked on Nov. 4, Naputi-Pullar said.

There also are those voters who forgot to sign their ballot, or perhaps there’s a discrepancy between the signature on the ballot and what the Auditor’s Office has on file. In those situations, the Auditor’s Office will reach out to those voters to “cure” the ballot, she said.

That additional work will continue until 4:30 p.m. Nov. 24. The following day — the date of certification — the canvassing board will meet to discuss the schedule for the recount, she said.

Why are so many ballots counted after Nov. 4?

Although ballots are mailed to residents long before the election, and can be returned at any time before Nov. 4, many people still wait to vote on election day, Naputi-Pullar said.

Of the roughly 84,000 ballots that have been counted, about 30,000 of that total were placed in ballot boxes or mailed on Nov. 4, she said.

Thursday’s vote tally

District 2

• Jerry Toompas: 39,124 votes, or 49.9%.
• Bob Iyall: 38,971 votes, or 49.7%.

This story was originally published November 14, 2025 at 5:00 AM.