Editor’s note: The race has since tightened by about 100 votes.

Tuesday special election results show 51.33 percent of Renton voters voted in favor of annexing their library to the King County Library System and 48.67 percent opposed.

“With that big of a percentage, it’s an uphill battle,” said Marcie Palmer, a Renton City Council member who also led the group opposed the annexation. “I feel so badly for the people who worked so hard. These people are not community activists.”

Neither group claimed victory or defeat.

“We’re going to keep watching the results come in and hope we maintain the lead,” said Peter Hartley, a Renton Library Board member who favored the annexation.

“Whichever way this ends up, the Library Board is going to be engaged in either holding KCLS’s feet to the fire or figuring out where to go from here,” he said.

Palmer expressed surprise and disappointment at the results.

The City Council, which mostly favored the annexation, was anticipating annexation would lose, so much so it put a discussion on what to do next in the agenda for this week’s council retreat, Palmer said.

“I expected it to be close, but I expected us (KCLS) to win,” Hartley said.

The count so far includes about 25 percent of the roughly 41,000 ballots mailed to Renton voters. The county Elections Division is expecting a 35 percent turnout of registered voters countywide.

About 28 percent of Renton’s ballots had been received as of Tuesday night.

Tuesday’s count showed 5,356 people voted in favor the annexation, while 5,078 people voted against it.

The next count will be released at 4:30 p.m. today. Ballots will continue to be counted until the results are certified Feb. 24.

If the city decides to annex to KCLS, it will hand over its library operations in the beginning of March.

“I think this changes Renton in more ways than people think,” Palmer said.

In another Renton election, two small neighborhoods on the city’s eastern border near Honey Creek were deciding whether to revoke a city-initiated annexation of their areas.

Only five out of 27 ballots issued to Sunset East voters were counted as of Tuesday; 80 percent of those favor revoking the annexation. A little over a third of the 79 ballots issued to Honey Creek Estates voters were counted, with about 77 percent of those also voting to revoke the annexation.