5:54 pm - It is all over but the shouting.  A couple hundred more votes will be counted over the next week.  No contest was within the 1/2 of one percent needed for a mandatory recount.  It was a larger voter turnout than expected, with about 69,000 voting of 117,134 registered voters in the county, for a turnout of about 59%.  Very good turnout.  For now, I'm outa here.  Congrats to the winners.  And thank you Shirley Forsloff for your fine service as our Auditor and the very accurate voter tallys all these years.  

5:41 - Pete Kremen will now serve 4 years on the county council.  Tony Larson closed about 1,160 votes behind - having gained anothe 60 from yesterday.  Sadly, it was Pete Kremen who urged Tony to run for county council a bit over a year ago - promising to back Tony all the way.  Then Pete found he was unable to leave the party and had second thoughts about retiring after 16 years as county executive - and ran against Tony.  Tony was elected exactly one year ago and has served only 12 months on the council.  To this political observer, this is a sad reflection on things.  Pete Kremen has won a seat on the council - but that is about it.  

5:35 - Christina Maginnis was 567 votes short.  She did an amazing run against a classic good old boy from the rural county areas.  This was her first time for public office and we can expect to see her run again, I'm sure.  Hopefully Sam will take the close race to heart and be a bit more open to the environmental and libeal concerns in this county.  If he does not, they he can expect to be welcoming some liberal and environmental new members to his council in two years.  He may have four years, but the council gets a refresh every two.  Sam is smart and should realize that.  

5:29 - Kelli wins by 2/3rds of one percent - and so there will be no mandatory recount.  We can rest assured that a recount would not change anything.  Kelli wins by 164 votes.  Today, 1,888 ballots were counted in the mayor's race - twice what we thought was left.  Pike gained by 56 votes in today's count.  

5:23 - Crawford holds on to be reelected to the County Council. 

Kremen holds on to best Tony Larson and sit on the County Council. 

5:20 - Did you see Sharon Crozier died this weekend.  She ran for mayor of Bhm in, I think, 2001 or so.  She was feisty - and she said it had helped her beat cancer -and it may have been more than once.  She was 61.  Moles funeral home.  I will post something online soon about her.  When we started the Whatcom Independent about 2003, she came on as the first editor.  She actually deserves a lot of credit for getting the Lake Whatcom water quality into every election as an issue.  It existed before her, but she made it very prominent.  Still no results.

5:15 - Crawford admits to hitting the refresh key on Monday evening - and so he is doing it now.  Basically these three elections will mean real things about how our county and Bellingham relate to each other and how they pursue business. 

5:12 - wonder if I'm writing to myself.  Dillon should be watching from KGMI.  I'm sure Paben and Stark are refreshing at the Herald and waiting to post on their Politics blog.  

5:10 - If Kelli keeps her lead - and she had 220 yesterday - then she is mayor.  We expect her to lose some more votes but if only a 1,000 more city ballots are counted today then she should end up with a margin of about 150.

5:07 - who wins on the county council can keep that group of seven a conservative group with Sam Crawford as the natural leader, or swing it to the liberal side - with a new leader to be determined.  But it requires Kremen and Maginnis to be elected to go liberal.  And that does not look likely to happen.  

5:05 pm - three races are to be decided in a few minutes.  Kremen-Larson, Maginnis-Crawford and Linville-Pike.  I don't remember a local election with three important elections going to the wire like this.  

5:03 - feel free to leave a comment.  I've no insights and brain is sort of just pacing the floor waiting.  

5:00 - she said approximately.  

4:57 - ok, will start doing a bit of old fashioned blogging.  No results as of 4:58

4:21 pm - Yep - we are hitting the refresh button just like everyone else.  There were 6,233 ballots left to count today.  Yesterday, Monday, they counted 6,219 and posted by 4:45 pm.  Shirley expected to post today at approximately 5 pm.  The links are at the top of the right side column on this page.