Early results in Tuesday’s recall election—which are not yet final and do not include ballots still in the mail—are in, and the results are too close to call for one target of the recall, and another is on track to keep his seat if the results hold.
Results can be viewed on the county’s website.
The first round of results posted by the Washington County Elections Division show Banks Fire District 13 Board Chair Mark Schmidlin clinging to his seat with just five votes keeping him in office in initial results, which do not include ballots that may have been mailed but not received yet by the county.
Tuesday evening, the vote stood at 701 votes in favor of recalling Schmidlin, with 706 votes against the recall.
A new law in effect this year allows mailed ballots to be counted if they are postmarked by Election Day.
Board member Ed Ewing has a slightly more comfortable margin in his favor, with 46.81% of the initial votes calling for his removal, while 53.19% of voters thus far voted against his recall.
So far, the election turnout sits at 31.01% of the 4,598 registered voters residing in the Banks Fire District’s bounds.
If the results hold, Schmidlin and Ewing will keep their elected seats, but this newspaper does not call election results on limited data.
Additional results will be counted and posted every Friday, with a final report expected to be issued early in May, a county elections employee told the Banks Post in a phone call. If no more ballots are counted and published by the county, it may be Friday before the fate of two local elected officials is known.
Read more about what led to the recall here.
This story has been updated with the first election turnout percentage.
Chas Hundley is the editor of the Banks Post and sister news publications the Gales Creek Journal and the Salmonberry Magazine. He grew up in Gales Creek and has a cat.
