OKANOGAN – In the first vote count of the Nov. 8 general election, both Oroville and Tonasket school districts two-year replacement levies appear to be passing, however, according to the Okanogan County election officials, there are more ballots remaining to be counted than were tallied on election day.
Both North County school districts look like they are on the way to passing their Replacement Levies on this the second go-around for the propositions. Oroville’s levy currently has 430 votes (56.80 percent) in favor of their Proposition 1 and 32 against. Tonasket’s levy has 608 votes (52.73 percent) in favor their Proposition 1. However, there are still many votes that remain to be counted and the results aren’t official until all the eligible ballots are counted and certified at a later date.
In the contested races for county office, the incumbent, Tony Hawley, is just 23 votes ahead of challenger Paul D. Budrow in the unofficial, first count of the election ballots. In addition, Jon Neal is ahead in the early vote count over Lloyd Caton Jr. for Okanogan County Commissioner Position 3 and David Rodriguez is leading over Rojean “Jeannie” Hughes for Okanogan County Coroner. In the race for Okanogan County PUD Commissioner, No. 3, incumbent Jerry Asmussen is out in front of Joseph Enzensperger in the first count.
Several county offices had candidates who were unopposed, including for Okanogan County Assessor, Larry D. Gilman; Auditor, Cari Hall; Clerk, Susan Speiker, Prosecuting Attorney, Albert H. Lin and Treasurer, Pam Johnson.
In the Seventh District state legislative positions, Okanogan County is favoring incumbent Jacqueline Maycumber over challenger and fellow Republican Lonnie Williams for state Representative, Position 1. Incumbent Joel Kretz was unchallenged for state Representative Position 2 and incumbent Shelly Short was unchallenged for state Senator. Maycumber is leading by a large margin throughout the Seventh District.
Okanogan County voted in large numbers for Republican Tiffany Smiley over Democrat Patti Murray. However, statewide it is a different picture as Murray currently has a more than 250,000 vote lead in the first vote count.
County voters continue to favor incumbent Dan Newhouse, a Republican, over Doug White, a Democrat, for Congressional District 4 U.S. Representative
In the two advisory votes, No. 39 and 40, the majority of county voters voted to repeal them both. Statewide the majority is voting to maintain them.
The total ballot count was released at 8:34 p.m. on election day with all precincts reporting in. According to election officials with the county auditor’s office, 6,618 votes have been counted and an estimated 7,200 remain to be counted.
“The ‘Estimated Ballots Left to Count’ does not include ballots that may continue to be received in the mail with a postmark on or before Election Day or ballots with signature issues that must be corrected before they can be counted,” write election officials.
Voter turnout was 25.64 percent and the next ballot count will be Thursday, Nov. 11 at 5 p.m. Certification of the election is scheduled for Tuesday, Nov. 29, 2022.
To see full numbers for the election day count of how Okanogan County voters cast their ballots on Tuesday, as well as links to the state measures and Seventh-Legislative District count, as well as state-wide numbers of votes for the U.S. Senate and U.S. Legislature, visit https://results.vote.wa.gov/results/20221108/okanogan/.
