Of all the local elections since Tuesday, there’s at least one race in Salt Lake County that’s still too close to call. That’s the County Council race between Catherine Kanter and Richard Snelgrove.
As of election night, there was a mere 4,384 vote margin between Democrat Catherine Kanter and Republican incumbent Richard Snelgrove. The outcome of the race is significant because, if Kanter wins, it will shift the majority of the Council from Republican to Democrat.
Sherrie Swensen is the Salt Lake County Clerk. Her office is in charge of the local elections.
"It’s a very laborious process on our end when we get the ballots back, of which we have received over 134,000 that were not included in election night returns," Swensen said.
On top of that, there are about 19,000 provisional ballots yet to be counted.
With each mail-in ballot they have to compare signatures, make sure ballots are correctly marked and for provisional ballots, make sure proof of residency was provided.
With votes still being counted, the margin between Kanter and Snelgrove is a little less than two percent right now.
"If a race is within one, one-and-a-half and two percent and there is a lot of ballots left to be counted. It absolutely can change the outcome. We’ve seen it happen," Swensen said.
Swensen’s office added a huge number of active voters this year: 42,000 in Salt Lake County, just since the beginning of September. For the County Council race, they’ll be publishing updates as they come in, but the final results won’t be known until 4 P.M. on November 22nd.