Update: After the first round of absentee ballots were counted on Thursday, two of the rivals in the Democratic primary race for Baltimore County executive were effectively tied.
Sen. Jim Brochin received 723 more votes from absentee ballots, while former Del. John Olszewski Jr. (Johnny O), garnered another 419 votes. That still left Olszewski ahead of Brochin by just 42 votes, and 1,059 votes ahead of Councilwoman Vicki Almond.
The next round of votes won’t be counted until July 5, when provisional ballots will be tallied. Then on July 6 the last of the absentee ballots will be counted.
The last two Baltimore County precincts have finally reported their numbers, so we have a slightly clearer picture of where things stand in the excruciatingly close county executive Democratic primary between Vicki Almond, Jim Brochin and John Olszewski Jr.. The final totals from early voting and election day are: 
This total doesn’t include absentee ballots or provisional ballots. Those will be critical in a race this tight.
The Baltimore County Board of Elections says there were about 2,400 provisional ballots cast election day; we don’t yet know how many of those were cast by Democrats. The provisional ballots won’t be counted until July 5. The state also sent out 3,600 absentee ballots to Democratic voters and so far 2,000 have been received. Those are being counted today (Thursday), said Donna Duncan, assistant deputy administrator for the state board of elections, and the results might be released later today but it might not be until Friday.
But unless those absentee ballots heavily favor one of the three candidates, they might not give much insight into the final outcome.
The remaining absentee ballots — possibly as many as 1,600 — will be counted July 6.
Is a recount possible?
If the final votes, including provisional and absentee, show a result in which two candidates are within 0.1 percent of each other, either candidate can formally request a recount and his or her campaign would not have to pay for it, Duncan said.
If the margin is wider, the candidate can still petition for a recount, but the campaign would have to pay. And the campaign would have to decide what kind of recount it wanted to fund, Duncan said. It could range from simply reviewing the tapes from precinct scanners to reloading the memory sticks and running a new report to a very costly manual review of ballots.
So the key things to watch are:
- the first round of absentee ballots, being counted Thursday, June 28
- the provisional ballots, being counted July 5
- the last batch of absentee ballots, with a final count July 6
Stay tuned.