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0000017b-f971-ddf0-a17b-fd73f4140000Coverage of the 2018 Elections in Spokane, throughout the region, and across the country. Support for SPR Election reporting is provided by Spokane Journal of Business, Express Employment Professionals, and SPR members.Click here for a list of 2018 Election Coverage Special Events

Spokane County Assessor's Race Now Final

Doug Nadvornick/SPR

Spokane County’s election canvassing board today [Wednesday] finally closed the door on the November general election.

Five weeks after ballots were cast, the last — and closest — race has finally been decided. Tom Konis defeated fellow Republican Leonard Christian for assessor.

Christian had a narrow lead after the early returns were counted on Election Night. But as ballots trickled in over the next 10 days or so, Konis moved ahead. When the election was certified on November 27, Konis led by 152 votes out of 231,000 cast. That was close enough to trigger a mandatory machine recount. That was carried out last week. Konis retained the lead. Now he has been declared the winner.

Auditor Vicky Dalton says more than 318,000 voters were registered in Spokane County. 73% of them voted, a record for a non-presidential year election.

“We have a labor pool of about 140 temps. We went through all of them. Everybody who could work, everybody who was here, who wasn’t in Arizona, snow birding, they were here working. We had a full house, every single day, all day long, for weeks and weeks. That’s what you see in a general election, not what you see in a mid-term election,” Dalton said.

As for Tom Konis, he has worked in the assessor’s office for about 25 years and will replace his boss, Vicki Horton.