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One state school board race was still too close to call Wednesday after an election night that saw the defeat of at least three, and possibly all, of the board's incumbent candidates.
Unofficial results showed District 1 incumbent Terryl Warner trailing challenger David Clark by 57 votes.
But those numbers do not include an estimated 2,000 outstanding ballots from Cache County's mail-in election or more than 500 provisional and absentee ballots from Box Elder, Rich and Morgan Counties. A total of 25,000 votes have been cast in the race.
"It's going to come down to Cache County's absentee ballots," Warner said.
Warner's school board seat also covers a portion of Weber County, but Elections Director Jennifer Morrell said Wednesday it was not yet known how many of the county's roughly 2,300 provisional and absentee ballots apply to precincts in District 1.
If defeated, Warner would join fellow school board incumbents Heather Groom, Dan Griffiths and Michael Jensen, who all fell to challengers Tuesday night.
Warner said the election results showed that Utah voters are unsatisfied and looking for change in public education.
"Education decisionmakers and policymakers were sent a very clear message, no doubt about it," she said. "I got that message loud and clear."
Groom's and Griffiths' races were shaken up by the late addition of a third candidate in September after U.S. District Court Judge Clark Waddoups ruled that the state's process for selecting candidates is unconstitutional.
Waddoups wrote that the unbridled discretion of a review committee that vets candidates is a threat to free speech rights. He ordered that former candidates Joel Wright, Breck England and Pat Rusk be added to the ballot, although England later withdrew from the race.
Wright, who challenged Groom for the District 9 seat in Utah County, said he was humbled, grateful and excited after coming out on top in unofficial results.
He said Utah is falling behind other states on educational reform and needs to get its act together.
"We have got to have the courage to start making some changes," he said. "Nothing is a sacred cow."
Wright earned 46 percent of the vote to Groom's 38 percent and third candidate Joylin Lincoln's 16 percent. But he said his margin of victory would likely have been greater if he had faced Groom alone. "Most people considered me and Joylin the conservative alternative," he said.
Lincoln agreed that she and Wright likely split the anti-incumbent vote, but she stopped short of saying she would have won the election without Wright on the ballot.
"When he was added to the ballot I stopped actively campaigning, because I believed the results would be challenged again in court," she said.
Counties have roughly two weeks to finalize their vote counts and report final tallies, said Mark Thomas, elections director for the Utah Lieutenant Governor's Office.
Thomas said several counties have thousands of outstanding ballots that could change the outcome of close races.
Warner spoke highly of her opponent and said he would serve the students of Utah well if the votes fall his way.
"He will do an amazing job if he wins," she said. "He's a really nice man."
Clark's 57-vote margin of victory over Warner falls within the statutory threshold allowing a defeated candidate to request a recount. But Warner said it was unlikely she would challenge the outcome of the election.
"If I lose, I lose," she said. "I don't want to be a sore loser."