(The Center Square) – The Seattle mayoral race is shaping up to be the city’s closest in more than two decades, and a possible recount – funded by taxpayers – is becoming increasingly likely.
Updated results from Tuesday show challenger Katie Wilson expanding her lead over Mayor Bruce Harrell from 91 votes to 1,346, or 50.1% of the total. That margin narrowly meets the threshold for an automatic machine recount under state law.
Under Washington state law, an automatic machine recount is triggered when the margin is less than 2,000 votes and the margin is less than 0.5% of the total votes cast for both candidates.
Seattle would have to pay for this recount. King County Elections Chief of Staff Kendall LeVan Hodson told The Center Square that the department would expect a recount to cost approximately $400,000, but she emphasized that is a rough estimate based on past recounts which vary in size and complexity.
King County Elections has not done any specific planning or staffing yet in preparation of a potential recount as of this publication. Approximately 1,500 votes remain to be counted, along with any challenged ballots that need to be resolved.
If the race does not fall under the required conditions for a mandatory recount, each candidate can request a recount but will have to pay for the recount unless the outcome is reversed, in which case the county pays. The requestor must pay a deposit of 25 cents per ballot cast for a hand recount or 15 cents per ballot for a machine recount.
With 273,996 ballots counted so far, that translates into $41,099 for a machine recount and $68,499 for a hand recount.
Wilson was originally down by seven percentage points, or 10,000 votes on Tuesday, but has since cut the deficit down and taken the lead by less than 100 votes. This is a common trend in Seattle elections as late-counted ballots typically come from younger voters in more progressive neighborhoods like Capitol Hill.
“We want to wait until every vote has been counted to declare victory, but we believe that we’ve won this race,” Wilson’s Campaign Manager Alex Gallo-Brown said to The Center Square in an email. “Katie will be a mayor for the entire city, and Seattle residents are going to expect results. We’re eager to begin that process!”
This race is the closest in Seattle mayoral election history since 2001 when Greg Nickels defeated Mark Sidran by just 1.06%. The last mayoral race in 2021 ended with Harrell winning his first term as Seattle mayor with 58% of the vote.
Harrell’s campaign team did not respond to The Center Square’s request for comment at the time of publication.
