Following a mandatory hand recount on Dec. 7, Jody Lee remains the winner over Todd White in the Mercer Island School District board director Position No. 5 race, according to King County Elections (KCE).

KCE’s board certified the final recount results on a livestream at 10:30 a.m. on Dec. 11 on its Facebook page.

When the results were certified for the Nov. 7 general election on Nov. 28, Lee (50.01%, 3,971 votes) led White (49.82%, 3,956 votes).

According to KCE, “Hand recounts are required when the vote total difference between two candidates is less than 150 votes and also less than 0.25% of the total number of votes cast for both candidates.” The Mercer Island race stood at 0.19%.

Jerelyn Hampton of King County noted during the livestream that there was one variance in the recount and the number of write-in votes dropped from 14 to 13 while the undervotes rose by one. The totals were not revealed at the meeting.

According to Hampton, the hand recount ballot polling prep work took all day on Dec. 6 and the hand tally process, which featured 14 count teams, lasted a couple of hours on Dec. 7.

City of Newcastle, Council Position No. 3 had a mandatory machine recount on Dec. 6.

During the two recounts, Hampton said about 40 people helped with all the various activities, and representatives from three of the four candidates and both major parties were among the approximately 14 observers on both days at KCE’s Renton office.