Updated 10/2/19
After Tuesday's election, both of Unalaska's contested races are still too close to call.
In the contest for mayor, preliminary results show Ounalashka Corporation Chairman Vince Tutiakoff Sr. is holding a 23-vote lead over current Vice Mayor Dennis Robinson.
Meanwhile, in the race for school board seat D, former teacher Josh Good is leading incumbent Denise Rankin by 22 votes.
To determine the final results, election officials will canvass 49 absentee and questioned ballots that are still uncounted.
"The two contested races are up in the air until after the canvass committee meeting on Friday, which is at 10 a.m. [at City Hall] and open to the public," said City Clerk Marjie Veeder.
Unalaska's three remaining races were decided Tuesday night by comfortable margins.
Trident Seafoods manager Darin Nicholson earned his first elected office at City Council seat D. He took about 60 percent of the vote despite a late write-in campaign by Thomas Bell, a member of the city's planning commission.
City Councilor Dave Gregory also won another term at seat D, while former substitute teacher Bob Cummings earned his first elected office at school board seat C. Both ran unopposed and took more than 90 percent of the vote.
In total, the election brought 548 Unalaskans to the polls, putting turnout at about 27 percent of registered voters. That's up from 21.5 percent last year.
KUCB will share the final 2019 election results on Friday, Oct. 4 as soon as they become available.
10/2/19 Update: This story previously stated that Dennis Robinson earned 221 votes and that there were 26 write-ins for mayor (City Council seat A). The City Clerk's office has since updated those numbers to 222 and 32, respectively, after recounting ballots by hand due to the closeness of the race.
"Because of the results for Seat CC-A and the number of write-ins, we did a hand re-count of ballots for this seat only, which changed the results for this race by one," said City Clerk Marjie Veeder in a email. "This particular ballot was not properly completed (the oval was not completely filled in as instructed), yet the Election Board unanimously agreed that the voter's intent was that the ballot be cast for Mr. Robinson. Therefore, the Election Day results for Seat CC-A have been modified."
Meanwhile, Veeder said the increase in write-ins was the result of some voters writing a name on the ballot's write-in line without filling in the corresponding oval. That meant those write-in votes were only tallied in the hand count, not in the initial count by the voting machine.
