Laurel Siddoway of Spokane will win the Appeals Court seat to which she was appointed this spring, ballots tallied Thursday show.

Siddoway, 56, consistently led Spokane attorney Harvey Dunham since Tuesday’s ballot counts, and with most ballots counted in the six-county district Thursday evening her election seems certain. She leads Dunham by more than 2,800 votes for the Division 3 position.

Dunham leads in four counties, but they have only about 1,800 ballots left to count. Spokane elections officials estimate they have about 10,000 more ballots to count, and Siddoway is collecting about 53 percent of the ballots in the district’s most-populous county.

The outcome is similar to a 2008 Appeals Court race between Dunham and Kevin Korsmo. Dunham won in most surrounding counties, but Korsmo won handily in Spokane County and retained the seat he received by appointment from Gov. Chris Gregoire.

Siddoway was appointed this spring by Gregoire to a seat that became open with Judge John Schultheis’ retirement.

The Spokane County Republican Party is endorsing Leonard Christian for County Auditor and Harvey Dunham for Appeals Court Judge.

At first glance, it may seem the first is logical, and the second a bit surprising, because the auditor’s office is partisan and Christian is the only Republican running, but judicial races are non-partisan.

Technically, that’s true about judicial races. But in practice, it’s ignored whenever convenient.

Dunham is a longtime Republican who serves as a judge pro tem and has run several times for various judicial positions, although never successfully. He was appointed to the County District Courty in 2005, but his inability to win the election the next year may have been hampered by partisanship. That is, an all-Republican board of county commissioners voted 2-1 to appoint Dunham to an opening, even though he wasn’t on the list of recommended appointees from a panel the commissioners set up. When questioned about the appointment, then-commissioner Phil Harris said he had a right to make a political appointment, and was going with Dunham, who was a friend.