The race to fill two Patterson City Council seats likely will remain unknown until at least late next week, as election workers pour through thousands of ballots received by mail and thousands more provisional ballots, according to Stanislaus County's registrar of voters.

Stanislaus County Clerk-Recorder and Registrar of Voters Lee Lundrigan stated in a press release Wednesday, Nov. 7, that about 36,000 to 38,000 ballots were picked up at post offices on election day, Tuesday, Nov. 6 and are being sorted and counted. Once that happens, election workers will turn their attention to 11,000 provisional ballots, which are issued to people who vote in the wrong polling place and are used when a voter’s identification is in question. State law requires that all election results be certified by Dec. 4.

Councilman Dominic Farinha and council candidate Dennis McCord led a hotly contested three-way race for two council seats following initial voting returns from the election Tuesday, Nov. 6. Council candidate Sheree Lustgarden trailed closely behind.

The latest available results with all precincts counted early Wednesday showed Farinha with 1,252 votes, followed by McCord with 1,178 and Lustgarten checking in with 1,158 votes.

Lundrigan said by phone Wednesday it was hard to know how many Patterson ballots remained to be sorted. Some county precincts have as many as 200 provisional ballots to review, she said.

Patterson poll worker Vivian Ratliff said Wednesday that about 100 provisional ballots were collected just at the Las Palmas Senior Housing Complex polling place.

Little doubt remained in the mayor’s race, however, as results early Wednesday showed Mayor Luis Molina with a 75 percent to 25 percent lead over mayoral candidate Troy McComak after all precincts were counted. Molina had collected 2,601 votes, while McComak had 868.

• Contact Nick Rappley at 892-6187, or nick@pattersonirrigator.com.