Bevins Declares Victory in the Sixth District

UPDATE (4:10 p.m.)—It looks like the Baltimore County Council will have two women members for the first time ever.

Katie Brown, elections director at the county board of elections, said late Thursday afternoon that after counting 895 absentee ballots in the Sixth Council District, Ryan Nawrocki picked up just 35 votes on leader Cathy Bevins, a Democrat.

Brown said about 650 provisional ballots remain to be counted. About 25 percent of those will likely be rejected by the board, based on past elections, according to Brown.

"I expected the rest will go like the absentee ballots — about 50-50 for Bevins and Nawrocki," Brown said.

Bevins declared victory Thursday afternoon in an e-mail to reporters.

"I'm confident in the numbers out there right now," Bevins said in an interview. "I'm disappointed that I didn't find out the final results like most did on Tuesday, but it was worth the wait after 15 months of work. Now, I can go away on a vacation with my husband for a week before getting to work for the people of the district."

Bevins joins Vicki Almond on the council when new members are sworn-in on Dec. 6. Its the first time in council history that there have been two woman on the legislative body.

Going into today's absentee ballot count, Bevins held a 339 vote lead over Nawrocki.

Nawrocki did not return several calls seeking comment.

Ann Beegle, a campaign adviser to Bevins, was present at the board's Catonsville offices during the counts today and said Bevins picked up 430 votes while Nawrocki picked up an additional 465.

The difference whittled Bevins' lead to 304 votes.

"At this point, we believe we've won," Beegle said.