Election candidates emerge

RITZVILLE – With an additional 400 late-arriving ballots counted Thursday, Aug. 5, the general election picture is clearing up.

Meanwhile, most of the maintenance and operations levies for parks and recreation and cemetery districts are passing.

In the Ritzville mayoral race, incumbent Mayor Linda Kadlec will move on to the general election, having received 55.02% of the vote, or 307 votes, as of the most recent tally.

Her opponent appears to be Dennis R. Chamberlain, who received 142 votes, or 24.45%,, and leads third-place candidate Glen R Stockwell by 38 votes.

In the Ritzville City Council at-large race, incumbent Mark Weigand and Marsha Reimers Smith will face off in the Nov. 2 general election.

Weigand trails Smith, 27.84% to 37.12%, respectively. Weigand received 147 votes and Smith received 196.

In third-place, candidate Dan Peters has 71 votes, or 13.45%, as of the most recent count.

In Lind, Mike Wold and Sheri Marlin appear to be moving on to contest council Position No. 2, and Laura Dew and Richard Baldwin will face off for council Position No. 3.

In the race for the No. 2 seat, Marlin has 72 votes and Wold has 64, or 41.62% and 36.99%, respectively. In third-place, Kathey Vedder has 36 votes, or 20.81%.

In the race for the No. 3 seat, Dew has amassed 118 votes, or 70.24%, more than double that of Whisper Casaday and Baldwin combined.

Baldwin has 32 votes, or 19.05%, and Casaday is a distant third with 15 votes, or 8.93%

Meanwhile, all of the levy measures in Lind, Ritzville and Washtucna are passing with substantial voter approval.

At issue for the levies are having enough voters turn out to validate the election.

Adams County Auditor Heidi Hunt said for a levy election to be validated, voter turnout must be 40% of the turnout from the previous general election.

To be approved, levies must have 60% yes votes, she said.

Lind Parks and Recreation District No. 3’s levy has 76.08% support. Ritzville Parks and Recreation District No. 4’s measure has 70.71% support.

And levies for both Adams County Cemetery District Nos. 1 and 3 are passing with 78.49% and 73.93% support.

Othello Parks and Recreation District No. 1’s levy has majority support at 54.09%, but not enough support to overcome the minimum 60% threshold.

Elections following a national election with a lot of interest and corresponding voter turnout, like the election on November 2020, can be the most difficult election cycles to validate in terms of voter turnout, Hunt said.

On Aug. 4, local elections officials performed audits of select precincts in the county, she said.

Audits are a standard procedure and match hand counted results with the results from the tabulation machines. The hand count results for Aug. 3 match the machine tallies, she said.

A final count will be done Aug. 16 for any remaining ballots.

“I doubt we will have more than about 25 more ballots,” Hunt said, noting ballots must have been postmarked on or before election day, Aug. 3, to be counted in the election.

The primary election is set to be certified Aug. 17.