Marion County judge race, House District 22 remain close with thousands of ballots left to count
As election workers continue to count ballots in the week after Election Day, two Salem-area races remain too close to call.
The remaining votes will decide who represents northeast Salem and Woodburn in the Oregon House and which judge takes the open seat in the Marion County Circuit Court. Both races were separated by just hundreds of votes as of 8 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 13, with thousands of ballots remaining to be counted.
The race for Oregon House District 22 between Rep. Tracy Cramer, a Republican, and opponent Lesly Muñoz, a Democrat, has narrowed to a 138 vote margin, according to election data. Cramer has a slight lead with 9,348 votes to Muñoz’ 9,210.
Marion County has 1,876 ballots accepted and waiting to be counted from voters in the district. Another 800 ballots from the district have not been accepted yet, most requiring signature issues to be corrected before they can be counted, Burgess said.
The race has gotten tighter as more votes have been counted. If Cramer wins, House Democrats will be one seat short of a supermajority in the chamber according to the Oregonian/OregonLive, which has already called the race for Cramer. A supermajority means the Democratic Party could pass tax increases, which require 60% approval, without Republican support.
The judge’s race for the Marion County Circuit Court is between Michelle Vlach-Ing, a criminal defense attorney, parenting time coordinator and temporary judge for the city of Salem and David Carlson, a Salem attorney for three decades who’s currently focused on wills, trusts, probate and guardianship.
Though Vlach-Ing led in a four-way primary in May, she currently trails behind Carlson by 556 votes. Both have received over 50,000 votes. Burgess said there are still 13,140 ballots remaining to count in the judge’s race as of Thursday morning. An additional 4,148 ballots have been returned that were “unaccepted,” and may be counted after voters correct signature issues.
In her campaign’s most recent Facebook post on Nov. 11, Vlach-Ing said the race was still too close to call.
“We are closely monitoring the ongoing count and remain optimistic,” she said in the post.
The next update of the count will be posted Thursday afternoon or evening, Burgess said. The deadline to resolve signature issues is Nov. 26.
Remaining Salem-area races have been called, with voters largely favoring incumbents for the state legislature and county offices. See the updated results in the story below:
Contact reporter Abbey McDonald: [email protected] or 503-575-1251.
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Abbey McDonald joined the Salem Reporter in 2022. She previously worked as the business reporter at The Astorian, where she covered labor issues, health care and social services. A University of Oregon grad, she has also reported for the Malheur Enterprise, The News-Review and Willamette Week.
