Sheriff candidate Mark Brown and assessor candidate Don Mason maintained sizable leads this week in subsequent counts of the Sept. 19 primary ballots.

As of 4 p.m. Thursday, a total of 9,937 ballots had been counted, but an estimated 9,500 still remained to be processed.

Brown, a former State Trooper of the Year, leads in the three-way race to be the Republican candidate for sheriff. He was at 2,058 votes while Coupeville Marshal Lenny Marlborough has 1,141 and Chief William “De” Dennis, the county jail administrator, received 1,096 ballots cast in his favor.

If Brown is declared the winner when the election is certified on Sept. 29, he will go on to face former deputy Jay Wallace in the November election. Wallace, the sole Democrat candidate for sheriff, received 2,264 votes — more than Marlborough and Dennis combined.

Brown said he’s excited to be in the lead and feels very confident.

“I continue to be very honored and humbled by the support,” he said.

Marlborough said he’s perfectly happy with the results, though he admits he would have liked to have won.

“I can support Mark in that position,” he said. “We’ve been friends for a long time and I know he’ll do a great job.”

In fact, Marlborough said he will ask his supporters to get behind Brown in the general election.

Marlborough is one of many people who are surprised that Wallace received so many votes. Since declaring his candidacy, Wallace was fired from his job as a deputy for allegedly lying on a police report and not adequately responding to two 911 reports from a woman being assaulted in Freeland. He was originally a Republican, but switched parties after the county Republican party rejected him in the convention. The county Democratic party did not endorse him. The state Attorney General’s Office charged him with a gross misdemeanor for allegedly lying on a police report.

“It’s just really confusing,” Marlborough said of Wallace’s support.

Wallace and De Dennis could not be reached for comment.

Brown said he will continue to campaign hard against his new opponent.

“I don’t want to take anything for granted,” he said.

Don Mason, candidate for county assessor, has received more than twice the votes of his Republican rival, Daniel Jones. So far, Mason has 2,627 votes and Jones has 1,232.

Mason, who works for the Island County Board of Equalization, will face Democrat Dave Mattens — a veteran of the Navy and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration — in the general election. It may be a close race. Mattens received 3,555 votes.

More than 71 percent of the voters were in favor of the EMS levy to improve emergency medical service in the county. It needs 60 percent of the votes to win.

If passed, the measure would increase the property tax levy to 50 cents per $1,000 of assessed property value.

Many of the candidates for positions that were uncontested within their party didn’t think their vote totals amount to much more than a hill of beans.

The competing candidates for Island County prosecutor, county commissioner and county treasurer raked in amazingly similar numbers of votes.

Island County Prosecutor Greg Banks has 3,620 votes so far. Republican challenger Steve Selby has 3,516.

Island County Commissioner Bill Byrd has 1,187 votes. Democrat challenger John Dean has 1,188. Their vote totals are lower because only voters in their District 3 — North Whidbey and Camano Island — can cast ballots for them in the primary. The general vote will be countywide.

Island County Treasurer Linda Riffe has 3,636 votes so far. Republican challenger John Morrow has 3,283 votes, even though he filed for the position late and has barely campaigned.

Selby said the vote totals in these positions mainly reveal that the county is divided nearly in half with Democrats and Republicans.

“It’s the party faithful who are just checking boxes,” he said. He added that he hopes more voters in the general election will look beyond party affiliations to substantive issues like qualifications and experience.

Banks agreed that the primary numbers don’t mean much because voters weren’t asked to directly choose between he and Selby, for example, on the pick-a-party ballot.

Yet Banks pointed out that he knows many people who chose to vote on the Republican side of the ticket in order to vote in the contested sheriff and assessor races, but plan to vote for him in the general election.

If that’s true, he could have many more votes coming his way in November, when folks will be free to vote on all their favorite candidates.

You can reach News-Times reporter Jessie Stensland at jstensland@whidbeynewstimes.com or call 675-6611.