{gallery}11_04_10/voting{/gallery} Casting her ballot before receiving her voter's badge of honor ­— a “My Vote Counted!” sticker — Kelly Laughlin votes on Tuesday at the Park County Fairgrounds. Tribune photo by Kara Bacon An unpredictable race for the Powell Hospital District board provided more suspense Wednesday as Park County voters waited to find out which of the five write-in candidates would fill two seats on the board. Only two candidates — Renee Humphries and incumbent Jim Beukelman — ran on the ballot to fill four, four-year seats on the board. Both earned seats on the board. {mosloadpositionuser201}

Another candidate, Sharea LinDae MoAn-Renaud, withdrew her name from consideration.

The possibility of two unoccupied seats on the board prompted five people to run write-in campaigns: Henry Yaple, Cathy Marine, Virginia Fish, Jim Carlson and R.J. Kost.

A total of 1,652 write-in votes were cast on Tuesday, but write-in results had not been tabulated as of press time Wednesday evening.

Beukelman, who was appointed to the board in January, garnered the most support, with 2,554 votes, or 35 percent of votes cast.

“It was a good day,” he said. “I'm looking forward to serving for the next four years. We don't know outcome as far as write-ins, but regardless of who gets on the board, I think they're all qualified. I think we're just fortunate to have well qualified people to run.”

Humphries, who received 2,072 votes for 28 percent, said she is excited to be elected to the hospital board.

“I have a huge learning curve,” she said, “but I know I'll be working with a good group of people who will be supportive, and I'm anxious to learn from them and be part of that community of people that are giving their time to make our health care community better.”

MoAn-Renaud's withdrawal came too late to prevent her name from appearing on the ballot. Despite signs at the polls advising voters that she had withdrawn from the race, she still received 1,051 votes, or 14 percent.

There were 8,547 fewer votes cast in the race than would have been if all people who voted in the election cast votes for each open seat. That number is larger than the 7,333 votes cast for the four hospital district seats.

In a separate, uncontested race, Larry Parker was elected to a two-year seat on the board. He was appointed to the board in May to fill the seat vacated by the death of Kay Carlson.

Park County's write-in board worked from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Wednesday reading through and tallying write-in votes for races throughout each of the county's 29 precincts, but at the end of the day, work still remained to add up all the names and determine winners, said Park County Clerk Kelly Jensen.

“You're compiling lots of names,” said Jensen.

Work would resume this morning (Thursday), she said.

Jensen said the write-in tabulations have taken longer this year because, in addition to local write-in races, election workers also must determine how many of the write-in votes cast for governor were for Taylor Haynes. Haynes, the apparent third-place finisher in the race as a write-in, has requested that his write-in votes be counted across the state.

Unofficial statewide results say Republican Matt Mead won the governor's race with 123,764 votes, followed by Democrat Leslie Petersen with 43,336 votes; 16,059 write-in votes were cast.

The Haynes-requested count will show exactly how many of those 16,059 write-in ballots were cast for him.

(CJ Baker contributed reporting to this story.)