Metro President: The count continues

Kari Chisholm

The race for Metro Council President between Tom Hughes and Bob Stacey remains too close to call. Here's a Thursday evening update from the O:

Here's how tight it is: Thursday morning, Hughes led by 272 votes. An afternoon update from Washington County increased his margin to 500 votes overall, but an update from Multnomah County reduced it back to 272. Clackamas County results increased the margin to 281 votes out of nearly 380,000 cast.

What's taking so long? Well, we're down to the part of the ballot-counting process where they're dealing with problem ballots -- ballots that got soaked in water or coffee, ballots marked with ink (or crayons) unreadable by machines, ballots that are torn, etc.

There will also be a bunch of ballots whose signatures don't match what's on file. Each of those voters will be given an opportunity to come in, and attest that it's their ballot. (And as I noted in May during the Stern/Starrett aftermath, the list of voters with "challenged ballots" is not a public list; the campaigns won't have an opportunity to get their favored voters in the door - unlike California.)

And, of course, once it's all done, then we're probably looking at a recount.

So, hang in there - fans of Tom and fans of Bob.

(And for those of you waiting for punditology results, you'll have to wait a bit too. I'm going to wait until at least the weekend to allow results to mature in the Metro President, SD-20, and the remaining nine undetermined U.S. House seats.)

By Kari Chisholm Nov. 05, 2010