New primary election results show Clallam County Sheriff Joe Martin building a stronger lead over opponents Soeren Poulsen and Lonnie Steele for the nonpartisan sheriff’s post.
After election officials counted a second crop of ballots Friday, the results show Martin with 5,106 votes, or about 61 percent of the total, to Poulsen’s 2,964 votes, or 35 percent.
Steele, with just 290 votes, or less than 4 percent, will not move on to the Nov. 2 general election.
A total of 17,043 ballots have been counted so far in the primary, with another count scheduled for Tuesday.
More than half of voters did not cast a vote for any of the sheriff’s candidates, possibly because of this year’s new style of primary election, where voters cast ballots based on their party preferences and were still asked to vote in nonpartisan races.
By comparison, races for key partisan positions such as governor saw less than 1,000 blank votes from Clallam County voters.
Friday’s count reflects ballots that were returned to the county Auditor’s Office from Sept. 9 to last Tuesday.
Ballots received from last Wednesday to Friday will be counted on Tuesday.