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Latest vote tally flips outcome of West Oahu House seat

COURTESY PHOTOS
                                Left to right: Elijah Pierick and Corey Rosenlee.

COURTESY PHOTOS

Left to right: Elijah Pierick and Corey Rosenlee.

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The latest count of the last 18,000 votes cast Tuesday on Election Day flipped the results of a contentious West Oahu seat and now has incumbent Republican Rep. Elijah Pierick winning instead of losing, but that could change back depending on a recount of the nearly 9,000 votes to be conducted by tonight.

Pierick, (Royal Kunia-Waipahu-Honouliuli), was losing to Campbell High School teacher Corey Rosenlee by 71 votes in their second consecutive showdown, according to the latest results released Wednesday morning.

But after counting the outstanding votes by Wednesday night, the results flipped to give Pierick a razor-thin victory over Rosenlee of just 20 votes. Pierick has 4,706 votes to Rosenlee’s 4,686.

It was the only race that changed based on the final ballots, according to state Elections Chief Scott Nago.

RELATED: See all the updated Hawaii election results here

By law, a recount can only be triggered if the difference votes is less than 100, or less than one-quarter of 1%, whichever is smaller.

Nago said the slim lead could still change following a recount of the House District 39 votes, which will require going through all of the mail-in ballots to find the ones specifically for that district, which will take time.

“Nothing else flipped, and no other recounts were triggered,” Nago said.

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