Boca Raton City Council race goes to recount Friday

The margin of victory for a Boca Raton City Council candidate over his opponent widened from three votes to 19 after uncounted ballots were tallied Wednesday — still requiring an automatic recount set for Friday, city officials said Wednesday.

Andy Thomson pulled ahead of Kathryn “Kathy” Cottrell after the two traded frontrunner status throughout election night as the results were posted by the Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Office. Almost 18,000 people voted in the race.

An automatic recount is required if the candidate totals are within 0.5 percent of each other. Only 0.10 percent separates Thomson and Cottrell, 44.12 percent vs. 44.02 percent. A third candidate in the race, Tamara McKee, finished with 11.86 percent of the vote.

If a recount is held and the candidate totals are still within 0.25 percent, then state law says a hand recount could be required.

The online vote total shows Thomson with 7,936 voted to Cottrell’s 7,917 votes.

“It’s too close to call,” said Rick Asnani, Thomson’s campaign manager.

Cottrell said her campaign will “participate fully and alertly” in the recount process.

“The outcome will be the outcome, and we’ll move forward either way,” Cottrell said.

Cottrell led most of election night as results were updated. Thomson tied her with results posted shortly after 11 p.m. and then had his

three-vote lead when the last results were posted at 12:31 a.m.

Cottrell, 60, is a semiretired consultant, and Thomson, 35, an attorney who lost his bid for a council seat last year.

The last time Boca Raton had such a close contest was in 2001, when City Councilman Dave Freudenberg won re-election by two votes after two recounts — including one by hand that lasted about seven hours. He defeated Susan Saxton — who is currently the city clerk — in the race, 5,018 votes to 5,016.

Tuesday’s race was triggered when Boca Mayor Susan Haynie was arrested on corruption charges in April and suspended from office by Gov. Rick Scott. Deputy Mayor Scott Singer became mayor and subsequently won the office Tuesday night. Thomson and Cottrell are competing to replace him in Seat A of the City Council.