A couple of key political races remained tight, but there were no apparent changes as election officials completed a second week of counting ballots in King and Pierce counties.
Most of the drama is found in Black Diamond, where Proposition 1 – a replacement levy for public safety operations – was failing by a slim margin Friday afternoon. The ballot proposal had generated 700 “yes” votes and 706 “no” votes.
Also, there was no significant changes in the mayor’s race, where City Councilwoman Rebecca Olness appears to be unseating longtime incumbent Howard Botts. Friday’s totals showed Olness with 52 percent of the popular vote, leading Botts by a 727-673 margin.
While the numbers had changes from a week earlier, the percentage held about the same.
The same was true in Buckley, where the only close citywide races had challenger Marvin Sundstrom squaring off against incumbent Cristi Boyle Barrett and challenger Bryan Howard facing incumbent Mark McNally.
After nine days of counting ballots, Boyle Barrett and McNally had each tallied 52 percent support.
A second week of tallying votes made no difference in the lopsided Enumclaw mayor’s race. Through Friday, Councilwoman Liz Reynolds was outpolling incumbent John Wise, receiving 66 percent support; the vote count stood at 1,989-1,023 in Reynolds’ favor.