Bruce Nichols has a 38-vote lead over Kody Justus for the Republican nomination for a seat on the Baker County Board of Commissioners, making this one of the closer such contests in decades.

Nichols, a 64-year-old CPA, had 1,684 votes, and Justus, a 45-year-old rancher, had 1,646 votes, in unofficial results from the County Clerk’s office.

Jeff Nelson, 51, the third Republican running to replace Tim L. Kerns on the three-member Board of Commissioners, has received 249 votes.

Those totals do not include about 17 ballots from Republican voters that have yet to be counted, County Clerk Cindy Carpenter said this morning.

Those ballots were either not signed, or the voter’s signature doesn’t match the one the county has on record, Carpenter said.

The Clerk’s office will notify each of those voters, who will have 14 days to correct the problem so their ballot can be counted.

What’s not clear is whether there will be a recount in the Commission race.

The 38-vote margin would be too large to warrant a mandatory recount under Oregon law, Carpenter said.

The law requires a recount if the vote difference is less than one-fifth of 1 percent of the total votes for the two candidates.

Between then, Nichols and Justus have received 3,330 votes. One-fifth of 1 percent of that is 6.6.

Besides mandatory recounts, however, a candidate or a county clerk can petition the Oregon Secretary of State for a recount. A voter or political party can also request a recount, at their own cost, on behalf of a candidate.

Justus said this morning that he had not yet thought about requesting a recount. He said he is waiting for the results of uncounted ballots to see whether an automatic recount might be warranted.

“I’ll just let it work itself out,” he said.

Nichols said Tuesday evening that he had expected the race would be close.

That wasn’t the case, however, with any of the three property tax levy extension measures.

Voters overwhelmingly approved four-year extensions to the levies for controlling noxious weeds and mosquitoes, as well as a five-year extension of the Baker County Library District levy.

See more in the May 18, 2016, issue of the Baker City Herald.