2023 Election – Day 4 Update
by Jenn Askew
Quick update for today in the two close races in Tahoma and Kent.
Tahoma
Another couple thousand votes were counted today and Matt Carreon has opened his lead to 347 votes from yesterday’s 167. This batch was very good for Carreon. A total of 10,651 ballots have been received by KC elections in this district, with 9,856 votes in this specific race.
My low estimate for total ballots in this district, based on day one’s turnout numbers compared to prior years’ day one turnout, was 10,690 ballots. With 10,651 received, we’re pretty close to that and it is unlikely we’ll get to my top estimate of 13,760. Some ballots will continue to trickle in, mostly from out of town voters who mailed theirs in, but the numbers are rarely substantial at this point. Still, let’s see what it would take for Peacock to overcome Carreon if we assume that this specific race hits 10,690 total votes (which would mean there were 834 votes left):
| Name | Votes held | New votes to win | % of remaining votes to win |
| Matt | 5,089 | 244 | 29.26% |
| Patrick | 4,742 | 591 | 70.86% |
Peacock would need 70.86% of all of those hypothetical votes. That’s pretty improbable. I’m not going to “call” it since that’s outside of my wheel house, but I also don’t foresee this race flipping at this point.
Kent
The Hamada vs Cook race has flipped, with Donald Cook now in the lead by 166 votes. They are also, likely, close to done counting ballots, but with such a small % difference between the candidates it is still possible this race could flip back. So, for the sake of curiosity, let’s pretend there are a thousand votes left in that race. Hamada would need 58.3% of those hypothetical votes to win this race:
| Name | Votes held | New votes to win | % of remaining votes to win |
| Leslie | 12,299 | 583 | 58.30% |
| Donald | 12,465 | 417 | 41.70% |
When Will We Know?
The elections department will release new results every day by 4:30pm M-F, so there won’t be any results released this weekend. In the past, the results by the first Friday after the election (which is today) have been pretty reliable, but it should be noted that the terrorist mail attack on the Renton facility on Wednesday did slow their usual progress. Official certification happens three weeks after the election, on November 28.
