The Island County Elections Office will count ballots by hand next week because of three extremely tight races from the Primary Election.

In fact, a race for precinct officer was an exact tie and may be decided by the toss of dice.

Michele Reagan, the elections supervisor, explained that all counties in the state have to do a costly manual recount of the commissioner of public lands position because the results for the second-place candidate were so tight. In fact, Reagan said it was the closest statewide race that she can recall.

Under state law, a manual recount is required for statewide elections when the difference in votes between two candidates is less than 1,000 votes and also less than 0.25% of the total number of ballots cast for both candidates.

Jaime Herrera Beutler, a Republican, was in first place with 419,297 votes or about 22% of the ballots cast statewide. In second place is Dave Upthegrove, a Democrat, with 396,300 votes and close behind is Republican Sue Kuehl Pederson with 396,249. That’s just a 51-vote difference. They both have 20.82% of the vote.

Only the top two vote-getters will move on to the General Election.

About 30,000 ballots have to be recounted in Island County alone.

The ballots in two Republican precinct officer races on Camano Island will also have to be recounted.

In one, Richard MacQuarrie and Wendi Monnie are tied with 109 votes each in Precinct 306.

In the other, the Precinct 307 candidates are separated by only one vote. Dennis Block has 119 and Kathy Cunningham has 118.

According to Reagan, a tie is not all that unusual because of the small number of votes involved in precinct officer races.

If either race for precinct officer is a tie after the recount, then it will be decided by a lot draw. Reagan said that is done differently in differing counties, with some preferring a coin toss. She said Island County used to use colored ping pong balls, but this year the office has a 10-sided die that will decided the issue if necessary.

”It really is the luck of the draw,” she said.

The recounts will be conducted at the Elections Office in Coupeville beginning Monday and will continue each day until it is concluded. The recount for the office of commissioner of public lands will be completed first, immediately followed by the precinct committee officer recounts.

The recounts are available for observation by the candidates of the impacted races, political party official observers, members of the press and the general public on a “space available” basis.