Here’s how Orange County elections office will determine District 1 winner

With only five votes separating the two candidates for the District 1 Orange County Commission seat, the Orange County Supervisor of Elections office has released its schedule of events to determine the winner.

By the end of the election day Tuesday, Aug. 20, incumbent Nicole Wilson led the race by five votes. 

Wilson garnered 14,052 votes (50.01%), while challenger Austin Arthur received 14,047 votes (49.99%). Earlier in the evening, the Supervisor of Elections unofficial results had Arthur leading by as many as 27 votes. 

There were 89 write-in votes. 

Here is the schedule of events for the Orange County Supervisor of Elections Office as it concludes the August primary election. Canvassing Board meeting times may change with proper notice.

10 a.m., Thursday, Aug. 22: The Orange County Canvassing Board will meet to canvass any provisional ballots, duplicated ballots or any other relevant matters. The board also will prepare its first set of unofficial results.

5 p.m., Thursday, Aug. 22: Deadline to submit vote-by-mail cure affidavit.

5 p.m., Thursday, Aug. 22: The Canvassing Board will discuss and order a recount, if necessary, per 102.141: “A machine recount must be ordered if the first set of unofficial returns indicates that a candidate was defeated or eliminated by 1/2 of 1% or less of the total votes cast for an office, or if an issue was approved or rejected by 1/2 of 1% or less of the total votes cast on the issue.” 

1:30 p.m., Friday, Aug. 23: If a recount has been ordered, the Canvassing Board will witness the Logic & Accuracy Testing of the voting and tabulating equipment to be used for the machine recount and will then conduct the recount. If the results of the machine recount trigger a manual recount, the Canvassing Board will order a manual recount per 102.166: “A manual recount must be ordered if the second set of unofficial returns indicates that a candidate was eliminated or defeated by 1/4 of 1% or less of the votes cast for the office, or an issue was approved or rejected by 1/4 of 1% or less.” 

The deadline for submission of county returns to the Department of State is noon on the eighth day following the election. In this case, that is noon, Thursday, Aug. 29.