2023 General Election: Second Count of Ballots

There were few changes between Election Night and the second count of ballots from the General Election on Thursday.

Some races tightened or separated slightly after over 4,800 new ballots were added to the total. This brought the turnout from an initial 18.55% to 28.46% for the county.

Doug Orr increased his lead for Aberdeen Mayor following the second count of ballots, although only moving from a 2 vote lead to an 8 vote lead. The difference between him and Debi Ann Pieraccini is only 0.34%.

In Ocean Shores, incumbent Jon Martin continues to trail Councilmember Frank Elduen in the race for Mayor, as Elduen’s lead widened by just under a full percentage point. Elduen holds 57.44% of the vote after the Thursday count.

Ocean Shores City Council races saw a number of slight changes, including a change in the race for Position 6 as Richard Wills now holds a 50% lead over PJ Faria, who had held a slight advantage on Tuesday.

The gap between Thomas Taylor and Bob Peterson for an Ocean Shores council seat closed slightly, although Taylor still holds the advantage; despite over 900 votes added within the race,  Susan Conniry and Lisa Griebel hold the exact same percentages ass Tuesday with Conniry leading by a fraction of a percentage point.

In Cosmopolis, the race between Mark Collett and Sue Darcy tightened slightly, with a 9 vote lead on Election Night turning into a 4 vote lead for Collett as of the second count.

In Elma, the race between Jacob Borden and Ron Woodman also became closer, with Woodman trailing by 14 votes.

In one unique race, Elizabeth Logan Brockman might be losing her race for Oakville School Board, although she was listed as unopposed on the official ballot. Brockman is trailing to WRITE-IN in the current vote tally, with the Grays Harbor Auditor confirming that there was an eligible write-in candidate and an active campaign was being run for voters to write-in Liz Marriott. At this time it is not known if the entire slate of write-ins are for Marriott, but election staff will make the official count prior to certification.

Additional counts are scheduled next week as mail-in ballots postmarked by election day are added to the count. 

With the latest ballot count, of Tuesday, 13,894 ballots have been counted in Grays Harbor.

Pacific County is scheduled to make their second count of ballots on November 15.

The vote is set to be certified on November 28.