Absentee Ballots Will Decide School Board Race Recount Likely In Tight Contest Between Barlow And Mccann

It could be two weeks before voters know who they elected to the Spokane School Board.

The race is so close, absentee ballots will decide whether Don Barlow or Joanne McCann wins the District 81 seat.

“It’s going to be a long wait,” said Barlow, a former alternative school principal. “I was hoping to get it over and done with last night so we could move on.”

For McCann, the long wait began in the middle of the night, when adrenaline kept her wide awake and wondering how the final results would play out.

“Whichever way it goes, it’s made an impact,” said McCann, who has stirred up educators by calling for major changes. “I think it’ll probably go down as the most remarkable election in school board history.”

The last count Tuesday night showed Barlow ahead by just 67 votes - an extremely narrow margin, considering nearly 50,000 people voted.

Elections officials expected another 3,000 or 4,000 absentee ballots to arrive in the mail. Once those votes are tallied, there will be an automatic recount because the race is so close, said County Elections Supervisor Tom Wilbur.

“It’d take a miracle for there not to be a recount,” he said.

More than 100 ballots from a precinct near Gonzaga University must also be hand-counted, because poll workers mistakenly tore them Tuesday night.

They were supposed to mark unused ballots by ripping them in half. Instead, the poll workers “kept right on going, ripping up the used ballots,” Wilbur said.

Final results for the board race will be formalized Nov. 19.

Barlow believes the close race indicates people are skeptical of the state’s education reform plan, which McCann spent a good chunk of her campaign railing against.

“I think a lot of people really don’t understand what education reform is,” said Barlow, who believes the plan will create more competent students. “We need to get the word out and involve more people, so they understand that.”

McCann, who once ran a Catholic school, disagrees. Winning over voters was easy because they’re so frustrated with the current school board, she said.

“An awful lot of people who voted for me said they were because I was a really independent thinker. I think it was a lot of people believing they’re not being heard (by the board).”

, DataTimes MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: STILL TOO CLOSE TO CALL Spokane School District 81 School Board Position 1 Final, unofficial (pending absentees) CANDIDATE VOTES PCT. Don Barlow 24,190 50.07% Joanne McCann 24,123 49.93% SOURCE: Spokane County