A recount of the 2nd Congressional District primary between Representatives Celeste Maloy and Colby Jenkins has become more likely as Maloy continues to maintain her lead.

An update of 250 ballots, the majority of which came from Washington County, narrowed Maloy's lead from 302 votes to 290 on Wednesday afternoon.

The update included “cured” ballots that needed signature verification from voters, as well as a late influx of 350 unprocessed ballots that arrived in Washington County on Tuesday — a week after Election Day — from the U.S. Postal Service's distribution center in Las Vegas. Only 87 ballots from that unexpected batch were postmarked and counted before Election Day, the county said.

“It was quite a surprise to us,” Washington County Clerk Ryan Sullivan told Deseret News.

There are currently 531 contested ballots on Washington County's cure list.

Will there be a recount in Utah's 2nd District race?

The county clerk's office has contacted each of those voters by letter, and those who provided their contact information by text message and phone call. The last day for voters in Washington County to correct their contested ballots is Monday, one day before the county's election certification or counting meeting on Tuesday.

“We are trying everything we can to make sure they know they need to come here to heal those affected, to make their voice count,” Sullivan said.

If late-mailed ballots, including corrected ballots, in the district's 13 precincts continue to swing as much or more in Jenkins' favor as they have in recent days, the updated vote totals from Friday and Monday could force the race to be recounted – 0.25% of the nearly 107,000 votes cast, or a margin of about 270 votes.

Reaching that hurdle is the outcome Jenkins' campaign has been hoping for since Maloy's initial lead of 1,000 votes fell to 383 votes and then slowly continued to decline with subsequent updates. If Jenkins gets within about 270 votes of Maloy, he can request a recount from the Utah Lieutenant Governor's office.

The race for the 2nd Congressional District will undergo a statewide recount by the Utah Lieutenant Governor's office on July 22 because it is a multi-district election. A candidate must file a request for a recount no later than seven days after the statewide recount, according to state law.

The Lieutenant Governor must conduct a complete recount of votes no later than 10 days after the statewide vote count. A recount involves recounting all votes cast in an election and re-examining any uncounted votes to ensure they were properly discarded.

Why did Washington County receive late ballots from Las Vegas?

The 350 ballots Washington County received on Tuesday, including the 263 that were discarded because they were postmarked on or after Election Day, are still a mystery. Although each ballot has a nine-digit identification code that can be associated with only one envelope and only one voter, Sullivan said he has not yet figured out which area the ballots came from or why it took so long for the U.S. Postal Service to get the ballots there.

All mail from or to Washington County will go through the Las Vegas mail processing facility, including absentee ballots. Sullivan said he hopes Tuesday's ballot allocation will be the last and encourages future voters to vote by mail or in person, as he believes those two methods are safer and faster.

“I want to send a message to voters: If possible, drop your ballot in a mailbox. That's the safest way to get it to us. Or cast your vote in person,” he said.

Davis County Clerk Brian McKenzie said rerouting Washington County mail through Las Vegas is a new development. And while it's far from ideal for ballots to arrive so late in the election season, McKenzie said Utah's mail-in voting system ensures that late-arriving ballots are treated the same as any other.

“That's why this postmark is such a valid and important aspect of what we do in Utah,” McKenzie said. “If those voters had cast their ballots on time, they would have received a timely postmark, and even if they arrive at the clerk's office a few days before the count, they can still be counted and accepted if they were cast on time.”