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SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — 11:45 p.m.
A candidate hoping to become Utah's first openly transgender elected official says she's waiting for more votes to be counted before conceding in a city council race in a suburb of Salt Lake City.
Returns Tuesday night showed 50-year-old Sophia Hawes-Tingey with about 42 percent of the vote in Midvale's 2nd District. Incumbent councilman Paul Glover had about 58 percent.
Salt Lake County election results showed 775 ballots had been counted late Tuesday out of about 2,000 sent to voters. It was unclear how many more had been cast Tuesday but not yet counted.
Hawes-Tingey says she'll wait for more information or final results set to be released Nov. 17 because the uncounted ballots could erase Glover's 128-vote lead.
Midvale is a city of 32,000 located about 10 miles south of Utah's capital.
11:15 p.m.
Former state lawmaker Jackie Biskupski says she's "extremely optimistic" after Tuesday election returns showed her leading the Salt Lake City mayor's race but says she's disappointed incumbent Ralph Becker is waiting to concede.
Biskupski says she's feeling confident in her apparent win but will wait to see the final results on Nov. 17.
Becker was trailing by 1,450 votes late Tuesday night. Salt Lake County Clerk Sherrie Swensen at least 10,000 ballots county-wide would need to be counted in the coming days. She says she should know how many are outstanding in the mayoral race by Wednesday afternoon.
Becker says if there are still thousands of votes left to be counted, he will wait until final results are released before making a concession.
11 p.m.
Former state lawmaker Jackie Biskupski is maintaining a small lead over incumbent Ralph Becker but the Salt Lake City mayor says he won't concede to Biskupski until all votes are counted.
Becker was trailing by 1,450 votes late Tuesday night but Salt Lake County Clerk Sherrie Swensen said thousands of ballots in the race would still need to be counted in the coming days. Final results will be released Nov. 17.
Becker says if there are still thousands of votes left to be counted, he will wait until the final results are released.
9:30 p.m.
An early batch of election results show a candidate hoping to become Utah's first openly transgender elected official trailing in a city council race.
Early returns Tuesday show 50-year-old Sophia Hawes-Tingey capturing about 41 percent of the vote in Midvale's 2nd District. Incumbent councilman Paul Glover had about 59 percent.
Hawes-Tingey is a software engineer and U.S. Navy veteran.
Last year, she unsuccessfully ran in a three-way Democratic primary race for an open seat in Utah's House of Representatives.
Glover owns a truck accessory business and garden center in Midvale.
The city of 32,000 is about 10 miles south of Utah's capital.
9 p.m.
Early election results show one of the Utah residents who successfully sued to overturn the state's same-sex marriage ban has a slight lead in a Salt Lake City council race.
Early returns Tuesday night showed Derek Kitchen with about 51 percent of the vote over Nate Salazar's 49 percent in the District 4 council race. Another batch of results is set to be released later Tuesday night.
In December 2013, federal Judge Robert Shelby ruled in favor of Kitchen, his partner and two other lesbian couples suing for the right to wed. Kitchen co-owns Laziz Foods, which sells hummus and other Moroccan spreads. He says one of the reasons he's running is to advocate for small businesses.
Salazar is a community school director and chairman of the Salt Lake County Democratic Hispanic Caucus.
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8:50 p.m.
Early results show former state lawmaker Jackie Biskupski leading incumbent Ralph Becker in the Salt Lake City mayor's race.
Results released around 8:40 p.m. Tuesday showed Biskupski with about 52 percent of the vote to Becker's 48. Another batch of returns is set to be released later Tuesday night.
The early count includes ballots mailed in through last week and some in-person votes cast Tuesday.
Becker has served since 2007 and would become one of a handful of the city's mayors to earn a third term if he wins.
Biskupski would be the city's first openly gay leader.
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8:15 p.m.
Salt Lake County Clerk Sherrie Swensen says early returns in in the Salt Lake City mayor's race will be delayed Tuesday as polling centers stay open to accommodate long lines of voters.
Swensen says the voters were in line before polls were supposed to close at 8 p.m., so they're still allowed to cast ballots.
Election workers in Millcreek and Salt Lake City estimate it will take them about half an hour to let everyone vote.
Swensen says initial results will be released sometime soon after that time.
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3:45 p.m.
Salt Lake County Clerk Sherrie Swensen says voter participation is already higher in Salt Lake City than it was in the last mayoral election.
Swensen says this year's tight mayoral race between incumbent Ralph Becker and former state lawmaker Jackie Biskupski may be boosting turnout, but she thinks it's higher largely because the election is being conducted almost entirely by mail.
She says turnout just before noon Tuesday was about 45 percent. She says she expects turnout to hit 55 percent following a steady stream of voters dropping off mail-in ballots or voting in person before vote centers close at 8 p.m.
Swensen says turnout in Salt Lake City four years ago was about 23 percent. Turnout in 2007, during another close mayoral race, was about 45 percent.
Early returns will be released around 8 p.m. Tuesday.
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