It’s official: Randall wins 26th District state Senate seat by 102 votes

Kitsap, Pierce counties’ manual recount altered vote count by just two votes.

PORT ORCHARD — It’s official: Emily Randall’s election as the new state senator-elect for the 26th Legislative District was certified by canvassing committees from Kitsap and Pierce counties today following a manual recount by their respective elections divisions.

After votes were manually counted and recounted Thursday, the Democrat’s win was confirmed with just a handful of ballots added to both candidates’ totals from the final machine ballot count announced Nov. 27.

The machine-count vote totals didn’t change in Pierce County after the manual recount; in Kitsap County, four extra votes were added to the total — three added to Republican Marty McClendon’s total and one vote added to Randall’s count. All told, the certified results for both counties was 35,088 for Randall, 34,986 for McClendon — a 102-vote margin. Randall went into the manual recount with a 104-vote lead.