Elections certi-fied next week.

With local elections to be certified Tuesday and only about 50 votes to be counted, many local races are close, including the mayoral race, which could end with a recount.

As of Wednesday, Patty Lent’s lead of 3,802 votes to Will Maupin’s 3,736 is a difference of .85 percent, too big a gap to trigger a recount, but if Maupin can miraculously pick up the last remaining 50 votes to be counted, that lead would shrink to only .2 percent, which would mean a recount and possible coin flip.

Lent claimed victory last week in an e-mail to her supporters. Maupin said he was holding out for the end, but knew it would take a miracle to pull it off.

“The probability of the difference getting anywhere close to .5 percent is very low,” Maupin said. “I am going to let the process play itself out, hope for a miracle and expect to be disappointed.”

The city council also has two contested races taking place and from the results Wednesday, both races could go either way.

In the race for District 1, incumbent Brad Gehring is still 10 votes behind challenger Jim McDonald, but with 50 votes yet to be counted, it is difficult to predict the outcome.

District 7 incumbent Carol Arends still holds a 23-vote lead over newcomer Gentry Lange, but that lead could be wiped out with a large percentage of the 50 outstanding votes going Lange’s way.

The race for Bremerton Municipal Court Judge has been a bit more decisive in its result as incumbent James Docter sits with an almost 2,000-vote lead over Ed Wolfe.

Three school board positions also are on the ballot, and like the election for judge, most of the leaders are well ahead of their challengers.

In the race for Director Position 1, Scott Rahm maintains his 1,710-vote lead over Christianne Martin.

As for the contest for Director Position 5, newly appointed interim director Carolynn Perkins sits comfortably in the lead over Ruben Garcia, 5,478 votes to 3,254.

Director Position 4 is seeing a much tighter race between incumbent Cynthia Galloway and her challenger, David Boynton. Only 100 votes separate the two, but there are only 50 votes or so left to count.

Also on the ballot, the race for Position 2 on the North Perry Water Commission. Incumbent Gary Purbaugh leads Jae Relling by nearly 700 votes.

Lastly, Bremerton Transportation Proposition 1, the measure put forth by the city council to raise money to fix city roads, is still well on its way to defeat. A difference of 2,874 votes separates the “no” votes from the “yes” votes.