Recount expected in Washington state’s tight 18th LD Senate race

Recount expected in tight 18th LD Senate race as Adrian Cortes leads by 343 votes. Image courtesy Clark County Elections Facebook page

As of Monday, Democrat Adrian Cortes held a lead of 343 votes over Republican Brad Benton for the senate seat in the 18th Legislative District in Clark County

Carleen Johnson
The Center Square Washington

Nearly two weeks after the Nov. 5 general election, staff at the Clark County Auditor’s Office are gearing up for a recount in a race that will determine whether or not Democrats expand their majority in the Washington State Senate.

As of Monday, Democrat Adrian Cortes held a lead of 343 votes over Republican Brad Benton for the senate seat in the 18th Legislative District in Clark County.

According to the Secretary of State’s Office website, 450 ballots remain outstanding and must be added on Tuesday.

“They came in a little later than we saw in the last presidential election,” Clark County Auditor Greg Kimsey told The Center Square, noting an unprecedented number of people voted in person on the day before election day and election day.

“We had a line of people the day before the election that was almost as long as the line we saw on election day four years ago,” he continued. “We ended up at 80% turnout, which is not that unusual for a presidential election. It’s a little less than 2020 when we had 85% and it was like 77% in 2016, so this was right in the middle.”

Clark County expects to add more votes to its election tally on Tuesday afternoon, but with only an estimated 450 votes outstanding, a recount is coming.

“We understand everyone wants the results as early as possible, and we work diligently long hours to include as many ballots as possible,” Kimsey said.

He pointed out that dealing with the large number of people who printed out ballots online for this election is a time-consuming affair.

“You can’t vote online, but you can get a copy of your ballot and print it out, and then when those e-ballots are returned to us, they all need to be duplicated so they can be put through the voting system,” Kimsey said.

A machine recount is likely.

“The trigger for a machine recount is one-half of a 1% differential between the two candidates, so at this point, it’s very unlikely that we won’t have a recount in that race,” he said.

He explained that a manual or hand recount would be triggered if there was a ballot differential of a quarter of 1%.

The remaining ballots to be counted are, for the most part, due to a signature that doesn’t match the signature on file.

“It’s really much easier than it used to be for people to cure signature issues,” Kimsey said. “If we have the voter’s driver’s license number on record or the last four digits of their social security number, they can simply call us up and affirm they voted that ballot and give us those numbers, and their ballot will be counted.”

Reports that Republican Brad Benton had already conceded the race for the prompted Washington State Republican Party Chair Jim Walsh to respond, “No comment.”

State law requires election officials to certify results by Nov. 26, but a recount will begin after certification.

This report was first published by The Center Square Washington.