Fresno City Council candidates wait to see who will be number two on the November ballot

FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- Three Fresno City Council candidates are waiting to see if they will move on to the November runoff.

Miguel Arias leads with 865 votes or about 30% of the total.

The real race now is for the second spot, Darren Miller is currently second with 420 votes, Tate Hill is in third with 411 votes, and Craig Scharton finished 4th with 406 votes.

Scharton notes the margin is so small that once the votes are all counted any of the three could still on the ballot in November.

"There are 14 votes separating 2nd, 3rd, and 4th place. It could be a couple of weeks before we know who's actually in the runoff with Miguel."

Fresno County Clerk Brandi Orth says it's among the closest races in the county. She says more than 84,000 ballots have been counted, but another 47,000 are still being tabulated.

"We are estimating we have 40,000 vote by mail envelopes that were turned in at the polls yesterday and then we have about 7,300 provisional ballots which we have to investigate and research each one individually."

Fresno County made a big effort to speed last nights vote count, using a sheriffs department helicopter to bring in ballots from Coalinga more than 60 miles away.

But an unknown number of ballots remain in the mail.

"If your ballot envelope was mailed and postmarked as of yesterday, the election day, and I receive it by this Friday, I can still count it," said Orth. "We are unsure how many could be in the mail stream, so that may change things."

Scharton will be among the candidates waiting to see if they get to keep campaigning until November.

"It would certainly be more fun to keep the campaign going and keep the issues I care about alive. "