Republican candidate for Grays Harbor County auditor Joe MacLean has a significant lead over his two Democrat opponents, with 5,895 votes to Chris Thomas’ 3,851 and Jasmine Dickhoff’s 3,751 after the second count of primary election ballots Wednesday afternoon.
With 13,497 votes counted so far, MacLean has 43.68 percent, Thomas, who was appointed to fill the position after Vern Spatz retired, 28.53 percent, and Dickhoff 27.79 percent of the vote.
The top two will advance to the general election in November.
The two candidates in the chase for county clerk are running a tight race but both will advance. Kym Foster, a Democrat, holds an edge of 6,691 votes to non-partisan challenger Janice Louthan’s 5,896, 53.16 percent to 46.84 percent.
Levies and sales tax measures
The voters in Elma are so far passing the city’s levy to partially fund police services in 2019 through a $175,000 excess property tax at a rate of $0.72 per $1,000 of assessed value. After the first count, 364 yes votes and 183 no votes have been counted, 66.54 percent in favor, 33.46 percent against of 547 votes tabulated.
Ocean Shores voters are split pretty evenly meanwhile on the sales and use tax for transportation improvements measure, with 1,026 yes votes to 940 no votes, 52.19 percent in favor and 47.81 percent against of the 1,966 votes cast so far.
The South Beach Regional Fire Authority’s excess levy measure is passing pretty handily in the early going. As of late Wednesday afternoon voters in Pacific and Grays Harbor counties were approving the measure 691 to 439, more than 60 percent in favor.
The emergency levy for Fire District 2 has wide support so far, with 1,314 votes in favor, or 78.82 percent, to 353 no votes, 21.18 percent of the total 1,667 votes counted so far. This levy is basically a continuation of the property tax levy passed by area voters two years ago.
In other countywide races, only one candidate filed for each office, including Vickie Raines for county commissioner, Dan Lindgren for assessor, Robert Kegel for coroner, Katie Svoboda for prosecutor, Rick Scott for sheriff and Ken Albert for treasurer.
