A Benton commissioner may lose his seat. A mandatory vote recount could decide

A Benton County commissioner’s race looks like it will need a recount.

Only 40 votes separate incumbent Commissioner Jim Beaver from former Benton County Deputy Joe Lusignan in one of the two commission seats up for election.

The top two vote-getters in the Aug. 4 primary, regardless of their party, move on to the general election in November.

In the three-way race for Beaver’s seat, he is currently second (32.11%) behind challenger Kennewick businessman Will McKay (33.71%). And Lusignan is third (31.86%). All three are Republicans and there were no other candidates running.

A mandatory recount is triggered when the difference between second- and third-place candidates is fewer than 2,000 votes and less than 0.5 percent of the total votes cast for both candidates.

As of Friday, the difference between Beaver, a 10-year incumbent, and Lusignan was 0.4 percent of the total votes they received.

If it stays like that after the election is certified on Tuesday, Aug. 18, there will be a mandatory recount.

However, Benton County Auditor Brenda Chilton said there are still a few ballots waiting to be counted.

Voters have until Monday to return any unsigned ballots that were questioned by the elections department.

And, she said, there are ballots coming in from members of the military and a handful more postmarked by election day but still being processed.

While the auditor’s office could be reviewing the ballots in that race again, it won’t be a hand recount, which has a much higher threshold requirement.

The auditor’s staff, instead, will be looking for places where the vote mark either overflowed the box, didn’t fill the bubble completely or someone wrote-in a candidate, Chilton said. They will make sure the correct person was recorded in the system.

They also will only be reviewing the one race, she said.

Other close races

Other county races were tight, but they aren’t close enough to require a recount.

▪ Benton County Commissioner Jerome Delvin (26.35%) was also in second place in his re-election bid but he had a 403-vote lead over third-place competitor Richland Councilman Michael Alvarez (24.66%). That’s a 3.3 percent difference.

Both are Republicans and two other Republicans were in the race. The first-place finisher was Justin Raffa, a Democrat (33.09%).

▪ The same is true in the tight, three-way race for the District 1 Franklin County Commission spot.

While just 67 votes divide the second- and third-place finishers, it’s not a small enough gap for an automatic recount.

Incumbent Commissioner Brad Peck, a Republican, (34.48%) will face challenger Kim Lehrman, a Democrat, (33.23%) in November.

County auditor Matt Beaton, also a Republican, will finish third (32.18%).

▪ In the race for the open Franklin County Commission seat, Rocky Mullen, a Republican, (42%), will face Anna Ruiz Peralta, a Democrat, (40%) in the general election.

This story was originally published August 14, 2020 at 6:35 PM.