Fewer than 1,000 votes separate some school board candidates. Marion County has 12,000 ballots left to count
(Amanda Loman/Salem Reporter)
Marion County voters returned thousands of ballots during the final hours of Election Day, and the county now has about 12,000 ballots remaining to be counted, Clerk Bill Burgess said.
Burgess initially estimated Tuesday night about 5,000 or 6,000 ballots were left, but said more came in right ahead of the 8 p.m. cutoff.
“We got a really good number,” Burgess said.
In two of the four races for Salem-Keizer School Board seats, the leading candidate was ahead by fewer than 1,000 votes.
For the zone 3 seat representing south Salem, Ashley Carson Cottingham is leading Linda Farrington by 557 votes as of late Tuesday. In zone 5, southeast Salem, Karina Guzmán Ortiz is ahead of Mike Slagle by 665 votes.
The four-way race in west Salem’s zone 1 is less tight, with Osvaldo Avila ahead of current second-place candidate Kari Zohner by 1,861 votes. Zone 7, north Salem, has María Hinojos Pressey up 1,364 votes over Liam Collins.
While not every Marion County voter lives within the district boundaries, Burgess estimated about two-thirds of the remaining ballots came from voters within the district.
Election workers in Polk County finished processing all ballots returned on Election Day Tuesday night, but still expect to receive some ballots today.
That’s because county election workers meet Wednesday to swap ballots that were returned to drop boxes in the wrong county, and the number of ballots that come in during the swap can vary widely.
Marion County will also pick up some ballots in that exchange. Burgess said a near-final count should be completed by the end of the day Thursday, minus any ballots that have signature issues needing to be resolved.
-Rachel Alexander
