LAYTON -- It's still too close to call.
Three candidates for Layton City Council will have to wait until next week to officially know whether they will be on the general election ballot.
On Wednesday, after voting officials had to verify the authenticity of an additional 259 votes, which came from residents voting outside of their precinct, the race between LT Weese, Chris Crowder and Steven Ashdown for the sixth and final spot in the general election got tighter.
Those new votes, plus 29 provisional votes -- which involved questions regarding voter eligibility, presented an updated count of 384 votes for Weese, followed by 370 votes for Crowder and 356 votes for Ashdown.
"All 259 vote center votes counted," said City Recording Thieda Wellman.
On Tuesday night, after all 43 of Layton's precincts had been counted, the three candidates were within 30 votes of each other. Now that race is closer.
However, now the candidates will have to wait for the paper ballots to be factored into the votes.
Wellman said there were 79 paper ballots as of Wednesday afternoon, and more could be coming.
Paper ballots include absentee ballots through the mail that needed to be postmarked by Sept. 13, as well as curbside votes.
"We'll have the final numbers when we canvass next week," Wellman said. "That's all we can say."
Layton will hold its canvass Wednesday.
For the three candidates wondering if they advanced to the general election, which will be Nov. 8, there's nothing they can do but wait until the canvass.
"It's not that frustrating because we're so far off (from the general election), and if it takes a couple days to get it right, that's fine," Weese said.
"It just matters that the right person, who has the most votes, is in there on the ballot."
Incumbents Joyce Brown and Scott Freitag led the way during the primary election, followed by Jory Francis, incumbent F. Renny Knowlton and Dawn Fitzpatrick.
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