The three competitive school board races in Lexington County are officially headed to a recount.

Lenice Shoemaker, director of registration and elections for the county, told the Chronicle a hand count of the ballots cast in the Nov. 8 election was declared late Friday afternoon for seats on the Lexington County District 1 and 2 school boards and on the Lexington-Richland District 5 school board “after the provisional ballots were reviewed and added to the total.”

The recount will start Monday, Nov. 14.

The margins in Districts 2 and 5 remain quite slim.

In District 2, incumbents Christina Rucker (28.23% of the vote) and Linda Alford-Wooten (27.08%) hold a significant lead in the race for three seats on the board, while Kevin Key (22.1%) and Chuck Hightower (22.8%) are separated by the same six vote margin from Wednesday’s post-Election Day results.

In District 5, Elizabeth Barnhardt (23.65%), Mike Satterfield (23.32%) and Ken Loveless (23.27%) are all within the 1% margin that mandates a recount under state law in the race for two seats on the board representing Lexington County. In the official results, Satterfield’s lead over Loveless grew to 16 votes.

[Online copy corrected.]

The margin that triggered the recount in Lexington 1 is much wider. The official results shared Friday have Beth Shealy (19.21%), Chris Rice (15.01%) and Katie McCown (10.84%) leading the race for three seats on the board, with Harriet Coker trailing with 10.44%. 401 votes separate McCown and Coker.

On the Richland County side of District 5, Kimberly Snipes and Kevin Skully left no doubt in dispatching incumbents Nikki Gardner and Tifani Moore.